We put stock cubes into the pan for frying up vegetables or even add them to water for cooking rice or pasta. However stock cubes are an unnecessary waste and often you find ingredients that you can’t understand or which are harmful to our health or the environment such as E621, palm oil or allergens. If you always need to put stock cubes into your dishes you can still make your own homemade stock cubes by following the recipes below.
Of course this recipe is not fixed…. It can be adapted to suit your tastes and you can add your own spices or change the vegetables and add less salt if you’d prefer. (You’ll find a list of alternative ingredients is a link at the bottom of this article.)
What you need:
- 2 big leeks
- 6 carrots
- 3 peeled onions
- 4 peeled garlic cloves
- 10 g thyme
- 1 cup of grated celery
- 1 celery stick
- 1/3 of the weight of vegetables in salt. (or a bit less) You can adapt this quality depending on your preferences.
- Dehydrator or Oven
- Mixer
- Airtight container
Choose organic vegetables if possible and you can add the skin to your recipe!
Here are the steps for making your homemade stock cubes:
Using a dehydrator:
1) Wash your vegetables and remove the skin if they are not organic.
2) Chop up each vegetable:
- Remove the green of the leek by keep the most possible. Chop into slices.
- Cut the celery into thin slices and then into small pieces of a centimetre thick and the carrots into slices.
- Cut the onion into thin slices and the garlic in two.
3) Put everything into a dehydrator at 60 °C for about 15 hours.
4) Weigh the vegetables and add a third of the weight in salt.
5) Add the thyme and put everything into the blender. Your powder is now ready! You can add everything to an airtight jar and keep in a cool, dry place.
Using an oven:
1) Slice the vegetables as thin as possible with a peeler or a slicer.
2) Put everything into a pan with some salt and without any fat or water. Cook on a high heat stirring well for 10 minutes and then a further 10 minutes on a low heat.
3) Spread the vegetables onto a tray carefully making sure they don’t touch each other as much as possible.
4) Put in the oven 60 °C for 6 hours. Mix and then put it back in the oven to dry for a further 2 hours.
5) Make your homemade stock cubes into a pot and keep in a cool, dry place.
Sources : Recette au déshydrateur ; Recette au four (with a list of alternative ingredients)