Have you ever been to a fabulous restaurant and had a bowl of French Onion Soup that knocked your socks off?
How do they do this? Good stock. The base of any superb and memorable soup or gravy is a rich stock.
The Best Beef Stock recipe made with herbs and vegetables. Freezer friendly and full of flavor, you’ll never buy store bought again!
If there is nothing else you take from this post, take this: not all stock is created equal. Store bought stock, the kind you get in a cardboard box, will never have the same robust flavor as homemade.
I get it, it takes a lot of time to create a flavorful stock, it is so much easier to pick up a box and add a little Kitchen Bouquet to “beef” it up.
If only once, try making your own. You will forever respect the process. Another key to this process is the quality of ingredients.
The more meat and bones, the better the flavor. Depending on the meat used, you may not achieve the same dark brown color you would get out of bullion or store bought stock, but have no fear, those generally have color added to produce the finished product.
After you apply your beef stock to the intended recipe, you will never notice the difference in color because you will be blown away by the intense flavor. The texture will also be thicker, even gelatinous when cooled.
Another pro? Stock freezes really well. Take one lazy Sunday and make a triple batch to freeze for later.
If you do decide to freeze, allow space at the top of your container to allow it to expand. You will need a stock pot or large enamel Dutch oven to prepare your stock.
But before you get started, make sure to read my How To Make Stock to ensure yours is the BEST it can be!
Preheat the oven to 400°F. Toss beef bones, onion, carrot and celery in olive oil. Roast for 1 hour, turning half way.
Meanwhile, place the stew meat, celery base, garlic, turnip, parsley, bay leaves, salt, pepper, thyme and rosemary in a large stock pot. Add the roasted vegetables and beef bones to the pot, although with any remaining liquid. Pour the red wine into the hot roasting pan to deglaze, loosening all the browned bits. Pour the wine and browned bits into the stock pot.
Add enough water to cover ingredients, plus two inches.
Simmer on low heat for 4-7 hours, the longer the better. About 2 hours after cooking, pull out the bones and using a potato nail or the end of a meat thermometer, scoop the marrow out and return to the stock along with the bones. The mixture might not be the deep brown color you are used to, after the mixture sits and fats separate from the broth, it will be less cloudy and more brown.
The liquid will have reduced by half, if not more. Using a slotted spoon, scoop out all solid ingredients. Line a colander or large sieve with a triple layer of cheesecloth and place over a large bowl, Dutch oven or casserole dish. Strain liquid through the cheese cloth. Discard solids. Cover and place liquid into the refrigerator.
After liquid has chilled, all of the fat will rise to the top and solidify. Now it can easily be spooned off the top leaving only deep, rich and flavorful beef stock. Now use your beef stock for something fabulous!
If you've tried this recipe come back and let us know how it was in the comments or ratings.
Notes
*My grocer sells beef bones frozen in large hunks. Apparently not a lot of people in my area make their own stock. The problem is that frozen bones rarely have a lot of meat on them, so I compensate by adding extra stew meat. If your bones are super meaty you can omit the stew meat.
The basic ratio for a good stock is 100% water, 50% bones and 10% mirepoix. To make it a rich stock you need to roast the bones and I like to bump the bones up to about 60% and the mirpoix to 15%. As in all brown stocks you would add a bit of tomato product too.
Making homemade stock is an investment of time, but you're rewarded with a stock that's far superior to any store-bought version. Our beef stock recipe cooks long and slow, but it's mostly hands-off. We use the classic French technique of roasting the bones before simmering them to give the stock caramelized flavor.
Woody herbs like rosemary, thyme, oregano, sage, tarragon, and marjoram release tons of flavor as they slowly simmer in stock. Give them a rinse and toss in a big handful of sprigs per quart of store-bought stock.
Basics: The basic ratio I use for making stock is 4:1 1/2:1/2:1/2. That's 4 pounds of bones and meat, 1 1/2 pounds of onions, and 1/2 pounds each of carrots and celery. This ratio works for beef, chicken, turkey, ham/pork, veal, whatever the meat is and makes about 2 quarts of stock.
The stock should be at a bare simmer, just a bubble or two coming up here and there. (You may need to put the pot on your smallest burner on the lowest temp, or if you are using an oven-safe pot, place it in the oven at 190°F.) Cover the pot loosely and let simmer low and slow for 3 to 6 hours.
Bring to a boil, then reduce to a simmer and cover. Cook for at least 10-12 hours, or until reduced by 1/3 or 1/2, leaving you with 6-8 cups of bone broth. The more it reduces, the more intense the flavor becomes and the more collagen is extracted. We find 12 hours to be the perfect cook time.
Although both stock and broth involve simmering in water, broth uses meat while stock uses bones. As a result, broth contains very little protein, a key ingredient in building flavor. Additionally, broth often does not contain vegetables or herbs, thereby requiring higher sodium levels to impart flavor.
Provided you store your beef broth in a container with an air-tight covering, you can expect homemade beef broth to last around 3 days in the fridge before it starts to go bad. If you are saving store bought broth, it will likely last 4 days as it has extra preservatives meant to extend its shelf life.
Although bone broth is considered healthy, it can do more harm than good to certain people. Here's why, there are side effects that some drinkers experience like gas, bloating, constipation and stomach pain.
Tomato paste – We are all about that rich, beefy flavor. Thanks to the umami in tomatoes, tomato paste helps us achieve it. We roast our beef bones, rubbed in tomato paste, for 30 minutes before making the stock.
You can fix bland bone broth by boiling it down to concentrate the flavor, adding a touch of salt and spices like curry powder, cumin or black pepper. If the broth is very bland, it's likely because there isn't enough gelatin in it, this begs the question as to why you're drinking a bland product.
As for time, if you don't cook a stock long enough, you risk not extracting sufficient flavor or gelatin. Cook it too long, though, and you get into a case of seriously diminishing returns.
Basic Ingredients. Stocks are prepared with a few basic ingredients including bones, mirepoix, herbs and spices, and sometimes tomatoes or wine. They are often prepared using leftover ingredients as a cost-effective measure for the kitchen.
The last ingredient is water. A good rule of thumb is that for each pound to pound-and-a-half of chicken, you'll need one quart of water, or enough to just barely cover everything. Any more than that and you'll have a watery chicken stock or need to simmer it for much longer to get it flavorful enough.
Start with adding just 1 tablespoon of water on top of 1 tablespoon bone broth powder and mix to create a paste-like consistency. This prevents the hydrophobic (water "fearing") powder particles from clumping together and allows the powder to smoothly incorporate into water.
Introduction: My name is Corie Satterfield, I am a fancy, perfect, spotless, quaint, fantastic, funny, lucky person who loves writing and wants to share my knowledge and understanding with you.
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