Vegetable stock substitutes

The closest thing to a straight swap, because commercial vegetable bouillon is essentially vegetable stock with the water taken out. Dissolve it in hot water and use the result exactly as the recipe intended.

Best for

soups, risotto, cooking grains and pulses, sauces, braises

Noticeably saltier than most homemade or carton stock, and usually more celery-forward and slightly sweeter because dried celery and onion dominate the blend. The practical consequence is simple: taste the dish before you add any salt of your own, and if it already tastes seasoned, do not salt it. Some cubes also carry a distinct yeast-extract note that shows up in pale dishes.

Straight swap if the dish does not have to be vegetarian. 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.

The free option and better than most cartons. 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.

The five-minute cheat that solves the actual problem. 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.

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. 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.

The answer nobody wants to hear and the right one more often than you would think. 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.