For a long time, we just assumed that "stock" and "broth" were interchangeable terms for the same thing: liquid flavored with vegetables, meat, and/or bones used as the base for soups, sauces, and other dishes. Right? Turns out that there is a slight but significant difference...
Stock is technically what is made when you simmer vegetables, meat scraps, bones, and aromatics in order to extract their flavor. Raw stock isn't meant to be eaten on its own, but rather it gets used as a base to make other things like soups, braises, or risotto.
In fact, stock doesn't taste all that great! There's no salt (traditionally) or many other seasonings to boost the flavor, and so stock by itself can taste muted, flat, and overly vegetal or meaty.
Broth, on the other hand, is something you can eat on its own! A technical definition for broth would be "seasoned stock." Now that the salt and other seasonings are added in, broth is tasty and satisfying.
It might seem like stock will always end up salted and seasoned when it is used, and therefore saying there's a difference between the two is really just splitting hairs. But the point of stock is that you have control over how it gets salted and seasoned. It's a blank slate and an already-seasoned broth is not.
Maybe the stock will be used for poaching fish, so you only want a little or no salt. Maybe you'll be reducing it down to a sauce, so starting off with a salted broth will make the reduction taste too salty. You never know what you might want to use it for!
We should note that this difference between stock and broth is fairly confined to the restaurant and culinary world. In the grocery store, we've definitely seen "stock" and "broth" used to describe the same product. We try to find the brand with the least amount of sodium (salt) since this will give us the most control with our own seasoning.
Did you make your own turkey stock this year?
Related: Good Tip: Stock in the Slow Cooker
(Image: Flickr member engnr_chik licensed under Creative Commons)
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Comments (12)
Oh that photo makes me so happy. I've only been making stock for the past year or so, and the instructions i've read always say to skim furiously to avoid a "cloudy stock". My stock is ALWAYS cloudy, no matter how much skimming i do. It looks pretty much like yours in the photo, which makes me feel so much better that i'm not committing some sort of culinary faux pas. :)
I learned an entirely different distinction, that a stock was made from bones and was gelatinous while broth was made from meat and was not.
Mh330, if I'm not mistaken, consomme is clear but stock isn't (mine never is). Consomme involves a pretty labor intensive clarifying process.
I started making my own stock about a year or so ago. Anything with a bone gets made into stock. Also, shrimp tails are frozen until I have enough to make stock from them. It makes me feel pretty good about not "wasting" plus my soups have never tasted better.
There are two methods I use for making stock. One (for smaller portions) is done in my crock pot. I'll do a whole chicken on a bed of potatoes, carrots, onions, etc. for dinner one evening (cooked on low for 6-8 hours). The chicken is so tender the bones practically fall out of it when I remove it from the crock. I return any additional bones to the crockpot, toss in whatever aromatics (onion skins, celery trimmings, etc) that I have in the freezer, cover with water, put the lid on and leave in on low overnight. The next morning (or even the next evening), I cool, strain, and freeze the stock.
If the carcass or bones are too large or too many for my crock, I put a large stainless, oven safe stockpot in the oven with all the stock makings, put the oven on 180 degrees and leave it alone.
It's a little bit of work (much more than opening a carton of broth) but I think the taste is worth it.
my stock is also always cloudy. i make it in the crock pot and it is the easiest thing to do! i keep bags in the freezer that i put my bones and veggie scraps into. when they're full i dump it all into the crock pot, add an onion, peppercorns, and water and start the pot. then i can go about my day, or night, not worrying about that pot on the stove.
oh, and i freeze it in my muffin tin so that i have about 1/3 c portions of it that i can melt whenever i need it!
i don't add salt to mine because i never know what i'll end up using it for. so much more control that with store bought stock!
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Mine's always cloudy too, except the pork broth I made. No idea why that one turned out clear but I nearly lost a finger trying to get that darn bone out of the roast (for future ref, get boneless shoulders) so it was darn well going to be used!
I salt mine as it cooks but not much. I freeze mine in ice cube trays and then dump the cubes into a freezer bag for later use.
What do you all use your other stocks for (shrimp stock, pork stock)? I've always heard that vegetable or chicken stock is more versatile, and fish stocks in particular have to be used for fish dishes... any ideas?
Shrimp stock goes into seafood gumbo, paella or zuppa del pescatore (or ciopino, boulabaise, whatever nationality you like your seafood soup). Pork is good for Chinese recipes, esp. wonton soup.
For those who make their stock in a crockpot I can almost guarantee that those stocks will turn out clearer than stocks made on the stove.
As long as the crockpot is not allowed to boil, the long, slow extraction of gelatin from the skin, meat and bones will flavor the stock without the chance of emulsification occuring which can happen from the turbulence of a boiling stock on the stove.
The crockpot method is similar to that used by the best professional kitchens. They will use steam-jacketed kettles which, not unlike a crockpot, are giant stainless steel crocks which can hold the stock at the slightest simmer. Now, if you could find a crockpot with a spigot on the bottom you'd be in real luck!
I just made some turkey stock in the crockpot and the whole thing turned gelatinous once I put it in the fridge. (I'd put it in there to get the fat to congeal.) This has never happened to my stock before. Is it okay to use?
Preocupada - yup, your stock is fine! Gelatin comes from the bones and connective tissue in the turkey, and if there's enough of it, your stock will gelatinize like jello in the fridge.
to make a clearer stock: start with cold water; keep it at a bare simmer (never let it boil); do not stir it up.
it really is an important distinction in a lot of cooking. of the brands i commonly see in the grocery, one labeled "broth" has the lowest sodium content, so i buy that (when i haven't made it... which is more often than i'd like to admit).
Thank you Emma for answering the broth v stock question that has been lurking in the back of my mind for ages. Also, a crock pot for stock...what a wonderful idea! I've wanted to make my own stock but I don't own a pot capable of a long, slow non-burning simmer so the crock pot suggestion will finally allow me to attempt it. Thank you!!!