Veal stock substitutes

Good quality beef stock or broth, simmered down slightly to concentrate it.

Best for

pan sauces, braises, stews, gravies, risotto, soups

The default answer and a solid one. Beef stock tastes stronger, browner and more obviously beefy than veal stock, which is prized precisely for being mild enough to carry other flavours rather than announce itself. In a red wine pan sauce for steak that extra beefiness is welcome. In a delicate sauce for veal, chicken or fish it can bully the dish, in which case dilute it with chicken stock. Always buy low-sodium, because you are going to reduce it and salt concentrates with everything else. A stock that is already salty becomes inedible when reduced by half.

Equal parts beef and chicken stock, which splits the difference between beef's strength and veal's mildness.

Best for

classic French sauces, pan sauces for veal or pork, blanquette, delicate braises

The best home stand-in for brown veal stock, and worth the extra thirty seconds. Chicken stock is light and slightly sweet, beef stock is deep and mineral, and the blend lands close to the neutral savoury middle where veal stock actually sits. It is still less gelatinous than the real thing, so the finished sauce will not cling to the back of a spoon in the same way. Reduce it a little further than you would reduce veal stock, or add gelatine.

Concentrated reduced stock sold in small tubs, thinned back out with water.

Best for

pan sauces, reductions, gravies, sauce Bordelaise, sauce Robert

If your supermarket carries a tub of demi-glace, this is the most accurate substitute available, because demi-glace is what reduced veal stock becomes. Diluted, it gives you the deep roasted flavour and the glossy, lip-sticking body that stock cubes cannot produce. Two cautions: it is intensely salty, so taste before adding any salt at all, and the flavour is more roasted and caramelised than fresh veal stock, so a pale sauce will turn noticeably browner.

Plain chicken stock reinforced with unflavoured gelatine to imitate the body veal bones give.

Best for

pan sauces, sauces for poultry, pork or fish, risotto, light braises

Underrated, and the right choice when the dish is delicate. Veal stock's defining trait is not a strong flavour but a rich mouthfeel from collagen, and gelatine supplies exactly that: the sauce coats the tongue and the spoon rather than running thin. What you miss is the roasted brown depth, so the finished sauce is lighter in colour and a little sweeter. Sprinkle the gelatine over a few tablespoons of the cold stock, let it swell for five minutes, then stir it into the warm stock.

Chicken wings and a little onion and carrot, roasted dark and simmered for about ninety minutes.

Best for

any recipe calling for fond de veau, sauces, braises, glace de viande

If you have an afternoon, this beats every shop-bought option. Chicken wings are cheap and packed with the same collagen that makes veal stock gel, so a wing stock sets firmly in the fridge just like the real thing. Roast the wings until genuinely dark brown, not golden, then simmer with a small onion, a carrot and a bay leaf. The result is slightly sweeter and less mineral than veal stock, but it has the right body and the right neutrality, which are the two qualities that matter most in a classical sauce.

Dried or concentrated bouillon dissolved in hot water, the last-resort option.

Best for

stews, braises, soups, gravies where the stock is a background flavour

Honest assessment: this works in a long-cooked stew and fails in a reduction sauce. Bouillon is mostly salt and yeast extract with flavouring, so it has no gelatine at all, which means a sauce made from it stays thin and watery no matter how long you reduce it, and the salt becomes overwhelming as the water leaves. If it is what you have and you are making a sauce, use it at half the recommended strength, thicken with a small amount of cornstarch or a butter finish rather than by reducing, and add no other salt.