Making your own stocks

With a homemade stock, you can use different herbs and spices that affect the stock. Also, you can control the amount of salt.

I use store bought all the time, but if I have the bones of the animal, I'll go ahead an make my own.

I make all my own stocks and it is not really time consuming while it's cooking away, but just a bit of effort once they are finished.

The stocks I make are chicken, fried turkey, beef, pork, shrimp, fish and I save the "oyster liquor" when I open oysters for use in soups and gumbos.

I will cook all stocks except seafood ones for about 12 hours before removing them from the fire and straining. Once they are strained, I'll let them cool and store them in the fridge overnight. The next day I'll remove the congealed fat from the top and what's left is more a jelly than liquid. This I'll put up in quart bags and freeze.

Seafood based stocks only cook for about an hour or so as I find they tend to become somewhat bitter if cooked a long time.

I haven't used plain water to cook much of what I fix in the kitchen in years and prefer to use stocks for an immediate flavor boost.

I make homemade stocks and use store bought. You can make a lot better stock than a store bought stock if you put your mind to it. But if you're just throwing a chicken in a pot I don't think there is much difference.

I'll get fancy every once in a while and make stock. I used to go the long, slow method on the stove top. Now I use my instapot.

Weekday meals usually get the low-sodium better than bouillon paste treatment.

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instapot

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Pressure cookers are the quickest way to get a good rich stock.

Lots of good advice in this thread. Homemade stocks with the collagen give a shiny appearance to your dish and have a better mouth-feel in my opinion.

I make my own most of the time - especially with shrimp stock. If I have some shells left over from a dish and I have some veggies lying around that I'm not planning to use right away, I'll go ahead and make a batch to freeze. It doesn't take much time and it uses up stuff that may go bad before I get around to cooking with it. I also make beef stock and keep a bag of marrow bones and other trimmings in the freezer for that purpose. I usually don't make chicken stock but I will occasionally if I happen to have some bones and trimmings left over from another dish.

Currently in my freezer i have smoked turkey stock, chicken stock, shrimp stock and a ham hock stock.

They take very little effort to cook and i enjoy the added flavor and richness they bring.

I freeze them in bags with about 2 -3 cups per bag, so they are basically for one use.

I dont think box stocks are as tasty, but i have no problem using them im a pinch.

I made a pork stock once and used it in jambalaya. Best jambalaya ever!

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I have a pressure cooker that I use to make stocks for most of my cooking.

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^^ This! Cool, strain, refrigerate, skim fat, freeze in quart bags. We like the idea of having stocks without salt or preservatives.