Here's everything worth knowing about beef stock and how to pick it, what it is, how to store it, and what to use instead, plus 959 recipes to cook tonight.

What is beef stock?

Beef stock is the deep, savory liquid you get by simmering beef bones and aromatic vegetables in water for hours until they give up their flavor and body. It is darker and far more assertive than chicken stock.

It is the base that makes a pot roast or a pan gravy taste like it took all day. Almost all good beef stock is brown stock: you roast the bones first, and that browning is where the color and the deep, meaty flavor come from.

For how stock differs from broth, and why you keep the pot below a boil, see the parent stock page. Here we focus on what beef bones in particular need.

Best Bones and Cuts

You want bones full of connective tissue and marrow. Knuckle and joint bones are heavy in collagen, which breaks down into the gelatin that gives stock its body.

Marrow bones add richness, and a piece or two of oxtail brings both meat and gelatin in one cut.

A few meaty bones matter as much as the marrow. A length of shin or a couple of short ribs carries actual beef flavor that pure marrow bones lack. The classic move is a mix: knuckles for body, oxtail or shin for taste.

If you can find them, a couple of veal bones smooth the whole pot out. Veal is milder and even richer in collagen than mature beef.

Roast for Color

This is the step that separates beef stock from a gray, weak broth.

Spread the bones in a roasting pan and roast at 450°F (230°C) until they are well browned, about 45 minutes. Add the chopped vegetables partway through so they color too. A spoonful of tomato paste smeared on near the end deepens the color and adds a quiet background savoriness.

Then deglaze. Pour off the fat, set the pan over a burner, splash in water or wine, and scrape up every brown bit stuck to the bottom. Those stuck bits are pure flavor, so tip them and the scrapings into the stockpot.

The Long Simmer

Beef bones are dense and need real time. Bring the pot up slowly, skim the foam that rises in the first half hour, then settle it to a bare simmer.

Plan on six to eight hours, longer if you can. The collagen in those big joints is slow to melt, and a stock pulled at three hours will taste thin and watery next to one that ran all afternoon.

Strain it and chill it overnight. The fat sets into a hard cap you lift off in one piece, and underneath, a good beef stock will be dark and wobble like jelly when cold.

That depth is what carries Applebee's Baked French Onion Soup, where the stock is most of the flavor. It is also the braising liquid behind Hearty Stovetop Beef Stew and Braised Short Ribs for Two.

Buying What You Cannot Make

Store beef stock rarely matches homemade, since most cartons are thin and lightly colored.

Choose one labeled stock rather than broth, go for low-sodium so you can reduce it, and expect to boost it. A splash of soy or a spoon of tomato paste plus a hard reduction will give a weak carton more backbone.

Better-than-bouillon style concentrated bases beat thin cartons for flavor per dollar, though they run salty. Glace de viande, a heavily reduced stock sold as a paste, is the most intense option of all and a little goes a long way.

Storing It

Homemade beef stock keeps about four to five days in the fridge, a touch longer than poultry stock because it is so dense.

Freeze the rest. Bags laid flat thaw fast, and stock frozen into cubes drops straight into a pan to finish a sauce. It holds well for around three months.

Reduce a batch hard before freezing and you get little pucks of concentrate that take up almost no room and rebuild into a quick gravy in minutes.

Nutrition

Quick facts

Where to find beef stock: Beef stock is usually found in the soups section or aisle of the grocery store or supermarket.

Food group: Beef stock is a member of the Soups, Sauces, and Gravies US Department of Agriculture nutritional food group.

In Chinese

牛股票

British (UK) term

Beef stock

en français

bouillon de boeuf

en español

caldo de carne

How much does beef stock weigh?

Amount	Weight
1 cup	240 grams

Related

Soups, Sauces, and Gravies

Recipes using beef stock

There are 971 recipes using and its varieties.

All 971 recipes

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