Vegetable Stock substitute

Best substitute

Water plus a stock cube, bouillon paste or stock powder

Use 1 cube or 1 teaspoon paste or powder for every 1 cup water, used 1:1 for stock

Best for soups

Close match

Water plus a stock cube or a teaspoon of bouillon paste per cup is a true one-to-one replacement and the answer most of the time. If you have chicken broth in the fridge and the dish does not need to be vegetarian, use it measure for measure; it will taste rounder and unmistakably of poultry. With fifteen minutes to spare, simmer a halved onion, a carrot, a celery stick, a garlic clove, a bay leaf and half a teaspoon of salt per cup of water and strain it. And the honest version: in a heavily flavoured dish such as chilli, curry or a tomato braise, salted water works and nobody will notice. In risotto or a delicate soup, plain water is genuinely flat.

Other vegetable stock substitutes

Ranked, with the exact amount to use

2Chicken or beef broth
Different taste
Use the same amount
Straight swap if the dish does not have to be vegetarian.
What changes
Meat broth does everything vegetable stock does and adds a little fat and gelatin on top, which gives sauces a slightly glossier, fuller mouthfeel.
Best for
risotto, soups, pilaf and grains, pan sauces, gravy
It will taste rounder, richer and clearly of chicken or beef, which in a mushroom risotto or a minestrone is arguably an upgrade and in a delicate spring vegetable soup pulls the dish somewhere else entirely. Obviously it disqualifies the dish for anyone vegetarian or vegan, so if that is the reason for the vegetable stock in the first place, this is not the route.
3Fifteen-minute aromatic water
Close match
Makes the same volume you start with; use 1:1
The free option and better than most cartons.
What changes
Per four cups of water, simmer half an onion, one carrot, one celery stick, two crushed garlic cloves, a bay leaf, a few peppercorns and half a teaspoon of salt per cup for fifteen minutes, then strain. Parsley stems, leek tops, mushroom stalks and a parmesan rind all improve it.
Best for
soups, risotto, grains, any dish where the liquid is the main flavour
Lighter and sweeter than commercial stock, cleaner-tasting, and with none of the yeasty savoury depth a cube gives, so if the dish needs backbone add a teaspoon of soy sauce or white miso off the heat. Avoid cabbage, broccoli, beetroot and too much carrot, which respectively make it sulphurous, sulphurous, pink and cloyingly sweet.
4Water plus an umami booster
Different taste
1 cup hot water plus 1 teaspoon white miso, or 1 teaspoon soy sauce, or a strip of kombu, or a dried mushroom
The five-minute cheat that solves the actual problem.
What changes
Vegetable stock is mostly delivering salt and glutamate-rich savoury depth, so add exactly those to water and skip the vegetables. Steep a dried shiitake or a piece of kombu in hot water for fifteen minutes, or whisk miso into hot water off the heat.
Best for
soups, noodle broths, braises, risotto, beans and grains
Each booster leaves a fingerprint. Miso makes it cloudy and beany, soy sauce makes it darker and saltier and will grey a pale risotto, kombu makes it clean and faintly oceanic, and dried mushroom makes it earthy and much darker. Choose to suit the dish, and add miso off the heat so it does not turn grainy.
5Bean cooking liquid or starchy pasta water
Different taste
Use the same amount
The liquid a pot of dried beans or chickpeas cooked in is already savoury, faintly sweet and lightly thickened with starch, and it is free.
What changes
Pasta water is a weaker version of the same idea and is genuinely useful for loosening sauces.
Best for
bean soups, greens and braises, pasta sauces, stews, risotto
Bean liquid gives a slightly cloudy, mildly thickening body that vegetable stock does not have, which helps a soup feel substantial. Season it, because unless you salted the beans it is barely salty. It is faintly beany, so it is at home in minestrone and pasta e fagioli and out of place in a clear consomme.
6Salted water, honestly assessed
Different taste
Use 1 cup water plus ½ teaspoon salt for every cup of stock
The answer nobody wants to hear and the right one more often than you would think.
What changes
Where a dish carries strong flavours of its own, the stock was never contributing much, and salted water performs identically.
Best for
chilli, curry, tomato-based sauces and braises, heavily spiced soups, cooking rice and grains
Where it fails is anything where the liquid is most of what you taste: risotto, a clear vegetable soup, a simple grain pilaf, a pan sauce. In those it comes out thin, watery and flat, and adding salt alone does not fix it because what is missing is savoury depth, not saltiness. In those cases use one of the boosters above.

What is Vegetable Stock?

Vegetable Stock is a savoury meatless liquid made by simmering vegetables and aromatics such as onion, carrot, celery, leek and herbs in water, and its job is to be the cooking liquid that gives soups, risotto, grains and pan sauces a background of savoury depth that plain water cannot.

Cooking tips

Do not lose sleep over stock versus broth here. With meat, stock means bones simmered long for gelatin and body while broth means seasoned meat and vegetables, so the two behave differently. Vegetables have no bones and no collagen, so vegetable stock and vegetable broth are effectively the same product with two labels, and any recipe calling for one is perfectly happy with the other.
Because there is no gelatin in it, vegetable stock never contributes body to a sauce. That is useful to know when substituting: you only need to match flavour and salt, and if the recipe wanted a sauce that thickens on its own, it was never going to get that from vegetable stock in the first place.
Cartons of vegetable stock vary enormously, from almost flavourless to aggressively carrot-sweet or yeast-heavy. Taste it on its own before it goes into a risotto, because at three or four cups per pan there is nothing to hide behind.
Keep a bag in the freezer for onion skins, leek tops, carrot peel, celery ends, parsley stems and mushroom stalks, and you can make stock from scraps in fifteen minutes whenever the question comes up. Leave out brassicas, potato peel, which makes it muddy, and anything past its best.
Add salty substitutes early and taste often, but add miso, soy sauce and lemon at the end. Salt concentrates as a dish reduces, and a stock cube dissolved into what becomes a thick braise can end up unpleasantly salty by the time it is done.

Frequently asked questions

Can I just use water instead of vegetable stock?

Often yes, with salt added, about half a teaspoon per cup. In dishes that already have strong flavours of their own, such as a chilli, a curry, a tomato braise or a heavily spiced soup, the stock was contributing very little and water is genuinely fine. In dishes where the liquid is the main thing you taste, notably risotto, clear soups and plain grain pilafs, water tastes noticeably flat and thin, and there you want at least a cube or a spoonful of miso in the water.

Is vegetable stock the same as vegetable broth?

In practice, yes. The stock and broth distinction comes from bones: real stock is made from bones simmered for hours to extract gelatin, while broth is a seasoned, lighter, drinkable liquid. Vegetables have no bones, so nothing separates the two beyond what the label says and how heavily it was salted. Use them interchangeably at one to one and only adjust for saltiness.

How many stock cubes equal a litre of vegetable stock?

Check the wrapper first, because brands are sized very differently: some cubes are intended for around 250 ml of water and others for 450 to 500 ml. As a rough default, two cubes to a litre or one cube per two cups is a reasonable starting point, then taste. Bouillon paste is more consistent at about one teaspoon per cup.

What is the best vegan substitute for vegetable stock?

Water with a teaspoon of white miso whisked in off the heat, or water steeped with a strip of kombu and a dried shiitake, are both fully vegan and give real savoury depth. Most vegetable bouillon cubes and pastes are also vegan, though a few contain milk derivatives, so read the label. Bean cooking liquid is a free vegan option that also adds a little body.

Can I substitute chicken stock for vegetable stock?

Yes, one to one, and it works well in almost every dish. It is richer and rounder and tastes clearly of chicken, which suits risotto, soups and grains and is less appropriate in a light, green, spring-vegetable dish. The only real constraint is dietary: if the recipe specified vegetable stock so that vegetarians could eat it, this defeats the purpose.

Related substitutes

More soups substitutes

Vegetable Stock substitute

Other vegetable stock substitutes

2Chicken or beef broth

3Fifteen-minute aromatic water

4Water plus an umami booster

5Bean cooking liquid or starchy pasta water

6Salted water, honestly assessed