Recipe: Making Your Own Ayurvedic Vegetable Stock

Making your own vegetable stock, and making it Ayurvedic, is much easier than you might think!

If you love to cook like me, you likely use vegetable stock (or chicken stock if you eat meat) on a constant basis. It can take even the simplest dish and elevate it with extra flavor. From an Ayurvedic perspective, making your own stock is a delicious tool in the self-healing toolbox that you carry with you your whole life (as our constitutions never change) and it supports balance and will imbue you with prana or vitality (which most of us need, tbh).

Nobody is perfect, so while I'd love to eat within Ayurvedic guidelines 100% of the time, it's not always realistic. When I'm in a time crunch, I will buy stock from the grocery shelf. It's not inherently a "bad" thing, but when you understand food through an Ayurvedic lens, you know that fresh and from scratch is best. Why? It's that prana word again - fresh, unaltered food just has the most vitality and will make us feel best. Don't get me wrong here - that doesn't mean we should judge ourselves, others, or situations where we must adapt to our householder lifestyles (because let's face it, we do not live in caves and meditate all day). Let's be gentle with ourselves and simply accept that this is what the ancient knowledge teaches us and that whenever we can (and want), we should follow these guidelines to align ourselves with better health and balance. When we practice yoga, the sister science to Ayurveda, we begin to notice things on even the subtlest layer of awareness. This happens off the mat, too. We sharpen our discernment and are able to more easily recognize what serves our highest purpose; what's more, we begin to feel naturally drawn to making changes even when they feel challenging.

Changing the ratios of certain ingredients not only changes the flavor of a dish, but also the energetics that affect our bodies and minds (either creating symptoms of excess or lack). Everything that we take in through the five senses (taste, smell, sound, touch, and sight) has the ability to either bring us closer to balance or can increase our symptoms of imbalance if we're not aware. Ayurveda teaches us that there are six tastes: sweet, salty, sour, astringent (dry), bitter, and pungent (spicy). Though each of us have different constitutions or doshic makeups, we can eat in a way that will not disturb the doshas, tridoshically (tri or three doshas). Cooking tridoshic meals - those that include all six tastes and therefore balance all three doshas - are a perfect place to start for beginners or anyone who wants to keep things simpler.

"Stock is everything in cooking...Without it, nothing can be done. If one's stock is good, what remains of the work is easy; if, on the other hand, it is bad or merely mediocre, it is quite hopeless to expect anything approaching a satisfactory result." -Auguste Escoffier, legendary French chef and restauranteur

What's the difference between stock and broth, by the way? If you don't know the answer, don't worry, I didn't at first either. There are several nuances, but stock is generally made with animal bones; in this case, since we're making a vegetarian version, we're obviously not following that rule. The other guidelines state that stock is always made without salt or pepper, developing its flavor only from the aromatics and vegetables that simmer in the water. Stock is also simmered for 4 to 6 hours whereas broth is 45 minutes to 2 hours. So, let's get to it!

Ayurvedic Vegetable Stock

Ingredients

6 to 8 servings

• 6 to 8 cups of purified water

• 2 to 3 medium carrots, peeled and chopped into large chunks

• 2 to 3 stalks of celery, chopped into large chunks

• 2 yellow onions, cut in half with the skin

• 1 to 2 leeks, roughly chopped

• 1 entire bulb of garlic with the entire top chopped off (see photo above)

• 2 or 3 bay leaves

• 1 tsp of turmeric or saffron

• A handful of whole allspice

• Half a bunch of parsley (regular or Italian)

• A few raw thyme and/or rosemary sprigs

• A squeeze of lemon or lime juice to finish

Directions

• Wash all vegetables, including parsley, thyme, and rosemary. Peel and roughly chop the carrots and leeks, chop the celery, cut the onion in half (with the skin still on), and cut the top part of the entire garlic bulb (also skin on). The thyme, parsley, and rosemary can remain whole (they are the aromatics).

• Pour the water into a large pot and begin heating the water at a medium to high heat.

• Add all of the spices, starting with the allspice and bay leaves. Add the aromatics. Add all the vegetables to the pot.

Once all the vegetables, spices, and aromatics have been added, allow the water to boil. Then, you'll allow it to simmer for 4 to 6 hours so all of the lovely flavors can properly infuse!

• Once the liquid starts to boil, reduce the heat to low and simmer for 4 to 6 hours. Stir the stock every 30 minutes to an hour or so. As you stir, if you feel so inspired (and especially if this is intended to be used for healing broths/dishes), feel welcome to chant a mantra like the Mahamrityunjaya Mantra to infuse the liquid with healing and transformation.

• Turn off the heat and allow the stock to cool to a warm (not hot) temperature. Squeeze some lemon or lime juice to finish (I would add about half a lemon or lime, but if you enjoy the sour taste, and if you have a vata imbalance, feel free to add more). Strain all of the liquid in the pot and toss the veggies and aromatics*.

• Transfer to a glass container. The stock can be refrigerated for up to 5 days and frozen for up to 5 months. Sip by itself if your digestive fire is low or use it in any recipe that calls for broth or stock, including soups, stews, kitchari, and more!

*The vegetables themselves will not really be edible at this point (though some may disagree with me) - my main thinking is that the prana is already infused in the broth and so the vegetables and aromatics no longer possess the same energy. If you compost, they can be utilized in that way.

The Six Tastes in Ayurveda

Let's talk about the six tastes and how they present in this recipe! For a meal to be doshic, you ideally want to include equal amounts of the six tastes: sweet, salty, sour, pungent, astringent, and bitter.

Taste	Ingredient	Information	Balances
Sweet	Carrots	Carrots, like all root vegetables, are sweet (and thus grounding!). A medium carrot, on average, can have up to 5g of naturally occurring sugar.	Vata & Pitta
Salty	Celery	Celery has a natural saltiness to it that you can truly taste when you eat it raw. In fact, one medium stalk of celery has 32mg of sodium!	Vata
Sour	Lemon/Lime	I think we can all agree on the sourness of citrus and the feeling we get when we bite into a lemon slice! The sour taste is balancing to vata and it encourages the secretion of digestive juices, including the saliva that is produced in the mouth (and is, in fact, the first step of digestion).	Vata
Astringent	Parsley	According to Sebastian Pole, author of Ayurvedic Medicine: The Principles of Traditional Practice, "The astringent taste is a flavor of dryness that is generally produced by tannins in the bark, leaves, and outer rinds of fruits and trees". In this recipe, parsley possesses this quality. Rosemary and bay leaves would also qualify. The astringent taste is reducing to both pitta and kapha doshas.	Pitta & Kapha
Pungent	Garlic/Onion	The pungent or spicy taste is highlighted by those foods where we feel literal heat in the mouth when we eat them. On the milder side, there's black pepper and like in our recipe, alliums like garlic and onion. On the spicier side, spicy chilis both in whole and spices form provide ample heat even in the smallest amounts. The pungent taste is balancing to kapha dosha.	Kapha
Bitter	Turmeric/Saffron	When talking about the bitter taste, we might normally think of leafy greens like kale, mustard greens, or collard greens, but several spices also fall under this category. Turmeric and saffron in this recipe fulfill their duty as bitter profiles! Bitter tastes will reduce and thus balance pitta and kapha when in excess.	Pitta & Kapha

If you try this recipe on your own, leave a comment below and share your experience in preparing it! Did you make any changes? What did you find? Let me know if any questions came up for you, too!

Stay tuned for more new recipes in the next couple of weeks, especially as I prepare my Spring Cleanse that will begin in March.