How to Make Vegetable Stock at Home

Making stock cubes is very easy thanks to the use of a dryer.

Vegetable stock is a compound (often made in the shape of a cube) of herbs, vegetables and salt that is used to make broth in a very short time. There are various types on the market, but unfortunately most contain glutamate and other allergens that make it unhealthy.
Homemade stock cube is a very valid alternative, much healthier and undoubtedly of superior quality . Producing it at home is very simple and does not require particular skills or abilities in the kitchen.
It can be used both to make instant broth as well as to flavour various types of preparations.

Ingredients for homemade stock cube

The base of the stock cube is always the same, vegetables and salt, but there are numerous variations based on personal tastes and needs.

The ratio between salt and vegetables is 1:3, but this is also a rough guideline, some even go as far as 1:2 to have an effect closer to that of salt.

• Main ingredients: Celery, carrot, onion (if you like you can also use the onion peel)
• Additional ingredients (optional): Tomato, garlic, courgettes, leeks, parsley, sage, pumpkin, mushrooms
• Extra virgin olive oil
• Coarse salt

Usually the ratio of use of the odors is quite balanced, but here too we feel we must say that the choice should be made based on personal tastes. If you like, you can also add some parts of meat or fish, with small variations on the preparation (which however we will NOT discuss in this article)

How to prepare vegetable stock

1. Wash and cut all the ingredients chosen for the preparation
2. Place everything in a saucepan with extra virgin olive oil and also salt
3. Leave to cook for at least 1 hour without a lid, taking care to stir often to avoid burning the ingredients.
4. Place the mixture into a blender and blend
5. At this point, if the mixture is already thick enough, you can proceed to the next step, otherwise it is necessary to continue cooking to evaporate most of the liquids.
6. Spread the mixture on the non-stick tray of your dehydrator, or on some baking paper and place it on top of the normal tray. (see tip below)
7. Start a program at 65/70° for at least 8 hours (it may also take longer)
8. Once finished, if the mixture is properly dried, you can either blend it again to reduce it to a powder, or chop it coarsely with a knife for a home-made effect.
9. Store in an airtight container or, even better, vacuum-packed.

Suggestions

If you have a vertical dehydrator you will certainly not have the non-stick tray for this type of preparation, so you will have to use baking paper.
In this case we suggest cutting the baking paper so as to let some air pass through the sides and in correspondence with the central hole, otherwise you will not be able to achieve the desired result.

If, on the contrary, you use the horizontal dryer , you can use the non-stick tray, and in addition the baking paper spread out on the shelves, but in this case you will undoubtedly have a quicker and more uniform result.

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