Homemade Stock: How We Turn Kitchen Scraps Into a Pantry Staple

Homemade stock is one of my favorite examples of using what we already have to save money in the kitchen.

Instead of throwing away bones, vegetable peelings, herb stems, and other scraps, we save them. Once we've collected enough, we turn those ingredients into homemade stock that we use for soups, stews, sauces, gravies, rice, and so much more.

And because we pressure can our stock, we can keep jars right on the pantry shelf ready for recipes like our Freezer-Friendly Taco Soup.

Good food doesn't always have to start with expensive ingredients. Sometimes it starts with the things you were about to throw away!

Why We Make Our Own Stock

There are several reasons homemade stock has become a staple in our kitchen.

It Helps Reduce Food Waste

We keep an empty gallon-size ice cream container in our freezer specifically for stock scraps.

Throughout the week, we add things like:

  • Onion ends and peelings

  • Carrot scraps

  • Celery ends and leaves

  • Herb stems

  • Chicken bones

  • Beef bones

  • Pork bones

When the container gets full—or when we have a rainy or cool day when we're going to be around the house anyway—it's time to make stock.

It Helps Stretch Our Grocery Budget

Most of what goes into our stock comes from food we've already purchased for another meal.

The bones from a roast or chicken and vegetable scraps could easily end up in the trash. Turning them into stock helps us get a little more value from groceries we've already bought.

We Control What's In It

When you make your own stock, you control the salt, seasonings, vegetables, and herbs.

You can also customize the flavor depending on how you plan to use it.

It's Convenient

This is one of the biggest reasons we can our stock instead of freezing it.

Once properly pressure canned, we have jars of homemade stock sitting in the pantry ready to use.

When I'm making soup, I don't need to thaw anything or run to the store for a carton of broth.

I just grab a jar from the pantry.

Our Basic Stock Vegetables

The exact ingredients change depending on what we've saved, and that's part of the beauty of homemade stock.

A basic batch might include:

  • 1 onion, roughly chopped

  • 2 carrots, roughly chopped

  • 2 celery stalks, roughly chopped

  • 4 garlic cloves

  • 2 bay leaves

  • 1 teaspoon black peppercorns

  • Thyme

  • Parsley

  • Other fresh herb stems

  • Water

You can also use ingredients such as leeks or mushrooms to add more depth of flavor.

Dinner With Durf Tip: You don't need beautiful vegetables for stock. This is where those ends, stems, and slightly tired vegetables can finally earn their keep!

Homemade Beef Stock

For beef stock, we save soup bones, roast bones, and even steak bones.

Roast the Bones

Preheat the oven to 400°F.

Arrange the beef bones in a single layer on a baking sheet and roast for approximately 30–45 minutes, turning them partway through.

Roasting helps develop a deeper flavor and color.

Make the Stock

Transfer the roasted bones to a large stockpot.

Add your vegetables and herbs and cover everything with water.

Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and allow the stock to gently simmer.

We generally let our beef stock simmer for several hours so the flavors have plenty of time to develop.

Occasionally skim away foam or excess fat that rises to the surface.

Homemade Chicken Stock

Any time we make chicken or bring home a rotisserie chicken, we save the bones.

Once we've accumulated enough, they become another batch of stock instead of going into the trash.

You can combine the chicken bones with your saved vegetables and herbs, cover with water, and gently simmer until you've developed a flavorful stock.

Homemade Pork Stock

When we pick up our hog from the butcher, we always ask to keep the bones.

Pork bones are wonderful for making stock that can later be used in soups, beans, gravies, sauces, and other recipes.

We prepare it much like our beef stock, combining the bones with vegetables, herbs, and water and allowing everything to simmer gently.

Homemade Seafood Stock

Don't throw away those shrimp shells!

Shrimp shells and appropriate fish trimmings can become an incredibly flavorful seafood stock.

We especially like using homemade seafood stock instead of plain water when cooking rice for dishes such as gumbo and jambalaya.

Unlike beef stock, seafood stock doesn't need to simmer all afternoon. A shorter simmer helps extract flavor without overcooking the delicate seafood ingredients.

How to Strain Homemade Stock

Once your stock has finished simmering, remove it from the heat and strain out the bones, vegetables, herbs, and other solids.

We like to use a fat separator with a reusable coffee filter to help strain our stock.

If you're preparing meat stock for canning, remove excess fat before filling the jars.

Pressure Canning Homemade Stock

Because meat and poultry stocks are low-acid foods, they must be processed in a pressure canner using a scientifically tested procedure.

For tested meat-stock procedures, hot stock is placed in jars leaving 1 inch of headspace.

Processing time for meat stock is:

Pints: 20 minutes
Quarts: 25 minutes

The correct pressure depends on whether you're using a dial-gauge or weighted-gauge pressure canner and your altitude.

Because those requirements matter for food safety, always check the current USDA or National Center for Home Food Preservation instructions before processing your stock rather than relying on a single PSI recommendation.

Important: Pressure canning is not the same as water-bath canning. Meat-based stock should not be processed using a boiling-water canner.

How We Use Our Homemade Stock

Once you start keeping homemade stock in the pantry, you'll probably be surprised by how often you reach for it.

We use ours for:

  • Soups and stews

  • Gravy

  • Sauces

  • Cooking rice

  • Cooking dried beans

  • Casseroles

  • Braised meats

  • Gumbo

  • Jambalaya

And, of course, it's one of the ingredients in our Freezer-Friendly Taco Soup.

Instead of purchasing six cups of beef broth specifically for that recipe, we simply head to the pantry and grab our home-canned beef stock.

Dinner With Durf: Use What You Have

Making homemade stock takes some time, but most of that time is simply letting the pot simmer.

That's why we tend to make stock on cool or rainy days when we're going to be home anyway.

What I love most is knowing that bones, vegetable scraps, and herbs that might have been thrown away have become something we'll use in several future meals.

Save the scraps. Make the stock. Can the stock. Use it later.

That's smart spending—and exactly the kind of cooking we love at Dinner With Durf.

Items We Use

  • Large stockpot

  • Fat separator

  • Reusable coffee filter

  • Pressure canner

  • Canning jars with lids and rings

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