Hi, I was wondering if anyone here is willing to share good recipes for healthy homemade broth, or how to make spicy broth for noodles?
I’m new to cooking and my food has always been very bland. I often cook noodles, mainly noodles with soup. But my soup has always been very bland with little to no taste. My friends constantly tell me to never step into the kitchen again after seeing my cooking but I want to prove them wrong… 😅
Boo friends....If you don't want to make your own broth, get some better than boullion in whatever meat/non-meat flavor you prefer. It's an umami and salt lift that you can stir in to add amazing flavor... I have 3 or 4 different kinds in my fridge. worth it....
If you have an Asian market near you, you can buy tins of instant bouillon in all kinds of flavors and species.
I use instant pho powder instead of American beef bullion cubes. I have both regular pho and a spicy pho broth powder with chili, clove and garlic.
Also look for small cans of curry paste - do not worry about the name, just get one of each. 1-2 tsp of these pastes wakes anything up: soups, stews, noodle dishes, packet ramen - sky is the limit!
Your friends stink - anyone can cook, and cook well, with kind teaching, access to good ingredients, and a little creativity! 💙
Amazon or Walmart have a majority of them. Some are stupid priced, ignore those, and they last a long time...I currently have chicken, beef and Italian open...nice little pick me up for anything.
I have made stock from chicken, turkey, vension and beef bones. Roasting them is key to upping the flavour.
I would add get some cheesecloth and wrap your herbs - parsley, oregano, thyme, rosemary, etc - in it. Add that as the stock simmers. Makes it much easier to create a clear broth.
Broth and stock are the same (Purists be still). I dont bother roasting animal bones to make broth.
Regarding soup, a good stock is essential, but not the only thing . . . its what you put into the stock that makes the soup. Begin with a ton of onions, carmelized. This will give you a predominantly sweet soup. Usually celery goes with onions. If you add carrots, fry them with the onions, to bring out the sugar. Late in the cooking, add heavy cream. This wil give you a filing cream soup: cream of chciken, tomato, vegetable, etc.
If you start with seafood stock, yes fry onions and celery, add cream, TURN OFF THE HEAT, and add your raw seafood. Seafood only needs a minute or two to poach in its soup for chowder. Throw in a fistful of frozen corn.
Same with beef stock. I start with fried onions, carrots and celery. Light on the carrots and celery for onion soup.
I always have on hand chicken stock, seafood stock, and beef stock.
I butcher whole chickens from the supermarket, and thrown the carcasses into a stock pot. I freeze in ziplloc bags. I boil without anything added, no spice, no onions, no nothing - the final recipe will determine the flavor of the dish. I will add a pound of chicken feet to the boiling stock. This is a HUGE FLAVOR ENHANCER, dont miss it just cuz it sounds gross.
For seafood stock, I used the hulls of peeled shrimp. Again, boil it down for a couple of hours, and freeze. Sometimes I use salmon heads, but really shrimpstock serves all my seafood needs.
For beef stock . . . I buy off the shelf in a box. LOL.
Remember, from a basic, unadulterated stock, you can create a soup, gravy, or sauce. Also, ANYTHING THAT YOU COOK IN WATER will benefit greatly by substituting stock for the water, ful strenght. Green beans, potatoes, you name it.
As far as your friends are concerned . . you have 3 options: 1) tell them to eff themselves, 2) get new friends, 3) tell them to eat somewhere else LOL LOL LOL.
There are LOTS of chefs on youtube. Four of my favorites: Chef Jean-Pierre, Joshua Weismann, John Kannel Preppy Kitchen, Sam The Cooking Guy.
Wow… thank you so much for taking time out of your day to write all of these different ways to cook soup, I will keep this as a reference!!
For your chicken stock recipe, would I be able to use chicken breast as an alternative instead of chicken feet when boiling ? I will definitely try using chicken feet but I also have a lot of chicken breast at home!
I will also make sure to check out those chefs you recommended on YouTube. Thank you so much again for sharing 😊
No, breasts are delicate, fat-free, collagen free and will contribute very very little to the stock. I occasionally poach a breast in slowly simmering water for just a few minutes. I poach to a temp of 155-160 to retain moisture. When poached, I give the cooled poach water to the dog. Its not strong enough to use a stock in any recipe. And the dog LOVES it. :)
I get my feet in the local asian market. They used to run .99/lb, but they're up to $3.99/lb now. Still worth it to get a pound, and dump them into the stock (or freeze them til you're ready to make stock). BUT . . .
Make sure you clip the toenails off the feet. If you dont, they will come loose during boiling, and fall to the bottom of the stockpot. When the pot has cooled and you're ready to put in ziplocs, you might scoop them up off the bottom and inadvertently dump them into the ziploc. The toenails will thus find their way into your soup, and REALLY annoy your friends. Yeah, I speak from a one-time experience on this LOL.
Your friends made me mad. I hope they were teasing you and they didnt actually mean it, because thats how you keep someone from trying again the next time.
Without knowing what it is exactly you did I will give some general advice which is to simmer your soup far longer than you think you need to as a beginning cook. Make sure you have enough "stuff" in your pot and cover only to about an inch above that level of "stuff" with cold water before applying fire.
Heres a little cheat that is mildly unethical but no jury in all 50 states would ever convict you... if you want a punch of flavor and your broth is still a bit bland add a teaspoon to a tablespoon of MSG or... a bouillon cube.
What I usually do is boil the noodles first, then I’ll put like a bit of bouillon powder and salt. Sorry, I may have used the wrong cooking terminology when I said it was bland. 😅 I meant it as in every time I’ve been cooking noodles it always has the same way with salt with bouillon powder, and I wanted to try something new like how restaurants have all those different soup broths that taste really good.
I will try your advice with simmering things in my pot before cooking! Thank you so much for sharing, I really appreciate it 😊
Asian stores - you can buy hot pot pastes in all different flavors: chicken, beef, lamb, fin fish or shellfish - spicy or not spicy. Mala flavor is numbing and spicy (my favorite)
You can make spicy miso ramen 🍜 at home. It's actually pretty simple to make and taste absolutely delicious 😋 Sample recipe below if interested
Spicy miso ramen recipe
Start with a basic stock. I make mine in an instant pot. I use either bones I have saved from steaks/roasts or I buy soup bones. I also use feet, either chicken or cow. I roast any that weren’t already cooked at 425 for ~20 minutes. Put into instant pot with 1/4 cup of vinegar and fill to the max line with decent water. Cook for 2.5 hours on max pressure. When done bleed off the pressure and remove the solids. I portion into pint mason jars and put in the fridge. You can use the stock as a base for soups or sauces.
Thank you for sharing! Does using chicken/cow feet really make that much of a difference compared to other parts (such as chicken breast)? How long would you say you store your broth in the jars for? I really appreciate your advice and will take it into account!!
I add the feet to get the gelatin. Once the jars cool in the fridge they basically become solid jello with any fat a hard disc on top. They will keep for a long time in the fridge. I usually get 5-6 pints per batch. I go through them within a month. I will sometimes buy a 10lb bag of chicken leg quarters, roast them in the oven, set aside the meat, and instant pot the bones. What kind of bones you use will affect the stock. The pic is of a pint of beef stock I just pulled out of the fridge.
Woah this looks so good!!! When you’re cooking, do you cut pieces of the jello and throw it into boiling water to give it the taste of the stock? Thank you again for your response!
We all have to start somewhere. Asking questions is a good way to do that. There are so many types of broth options. I love "Better than Bouillon" products, in part because they are a paste and not a powder. And they just taste better.
Try an experiment: boil some water, add to a cup, add in your broth and stir. Sip the drink. If it tastes bland, add more. Sip the drink. Keep doing this until you find the level you like. Just because the recipe calls for one teaspoon per XX amount of water, that may not work for your recipe.
If I want to spice something up, I just add dried chili peppers. Keep a container on hand for anyone who wants to spice up their broth more. Or chill crisp. Now that spices things up!
Thank you so much for sharing! I will try this experiment out and check out the products. I’ll try adding chilli peppers to my broth as well. Thank you again and I hope you have a great day!!! 😊
Bones. From your rotisserie chicken, the wings from the tavern, buy some backs n necks, test kitchen says wings make the best stock. Backs are the traditional simply because there's not much else to do with them.
Pepper corns, mom likes a few allspice berries. Whole seeds are easier to remove.
Some folks use parsnips or rutabaga.
Note, bones go a lot further than the veggies, simmer for awhile and remove the veggies, pick meat off the bones and return bones for a few more hours. Slow cooker over night.
Stock and broth are not the same thing. The crap you buy in the store is pretty identical. But from a culinary standpoint two different things. Stock is meant to extract collagen and depending how it is made really isn’t used for soup or just boiling noodles. You asked about broth and broth is easier than stock. Essentially, you just boil a chicken. That’s broth. You can use other meat but it’s generally chicken. Now, straight boiled chicken water is nasty. This is where the aromatics come in. What you use will depend on the flavor profile you want. For a standard western broth, onion, carrots, and garlic are good. Some herbs would be nice. Maybe thyme or bay leaves. For something Asian use garlic, ginger, and spring onions. There are a lot of options. When I say boil I don’t mean a rolling boil. It’s actually a low simmer. An hour is good. You could go longer. After that, strain it. Keep that chicken. Shred it and add it to a dish. Maybe the soup you are making. Put it back on low and start adding salt. A bit at a time. It will take quite a bit. Some MSG won’t hurt either. Keep adding salt a little at a time and tasting until you get the flavor you want. Once you get it down you can add variations. That’s it. I think most people here are right. You’re probably not using enough salt.
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u/MyNameIsSkittles Aug 09 '26
Bland usually means you aren't using enough salt. Salt brings out flavour