Portobello Mushroom Soup with Homemade Chicken Stock (2025)

FAQs

Can you just use chicken stock for soup? ›

In most cases, stock and broth are interchangeable. If you're in the soup aisle and can't remember whether the recipe called for stock or broth, either will do for making soup, gravy, or a flavorful pot of rice or grains. Keep in mind that stock is unseasoned, and broth is seasoned.

Store Bought or Homemade Chicken Stock

The store-bought chicken stock can be too salty, so make sure to dilute with water in a ratio of 2 parts broth to 1 part water (4 cups broth: 2 cups water) as a good starting point. You can always adjust the flavor to your liking by tasting the broth.

"Ground paprika, turmeric, nutmeg, ground ginger, and other powdered spices add a touch of color and spiciness to broths," she says. As a general rule, use fresh herbs at or near the end of cooking and dried herbs and spices early on. This helps you get the flavors you're looking for in the right balance.

Because of the long simmer of the chicken bones, it also contains the bonus of collagen, great for your skin and nails. Homemade chicken stock adds robust richness and depth of flavor to your homemade soups. Have you ever drank a mug of store-bought chicken broth? Probably not.

“In general, stock and broth can be used interchangeably. However, there are times when it is more advantageous to choose one over the other,” Hill admits. Because stock is made from bones, it will infuse any recipe with stronger chicken flavor than broth.

As a result, stock is usually a healthier product, delivering a richer mouth feel and deeper flavor than broth. Stock is a versatile culinary tool that can deliver taste to any number of dishes. Darker in color and more concentrated in flavor than broth, it's ideal for use in soups, rice, sauces and more.

The Stock or Broth. Once you've built up your soup's foundation with aromatics and seasonings, it's time to add a stock or broth. No single element in a soup wields as much influence on its taste as its liquid. You will want about a cup per serving: a little more for a brothy soup, a little less for a hearty one.

Chicken stock can be simmered for as little as 1 hour or up to 8 hours. Most often, you'll see recipes call for somewhere in between, about 3 to 4 hours. The longer the stock simmers, the more concentrated its flavor.

Stock adds flavor, color, and richness to your cooking. But it's also time-consuming to make and expensive (well, more expensive than water, anyway). Water, on the other hand is free and readily available—but it doesn't do anything in the flavor department.

Avoid adding salt if reducing the stock later. For brown stocks, caramelize the ingredients for added color, flavor and complexity.

How do you add flavor to store bought chicken stock? ›

Throw In Extra Aromatics

An onion sliced in half, plus a few chunks of carrots and celery can go a long way in flavoring store-bought stocks. For added smokiness, char aromatics like your onions before adding them to the pot. Garlic, sliced ginger, and lemongrass can also be simmered in the stock for extra flavor.

Bones. Bones are the most important ingredient; they add flavor, richness and color to the stock.

The hotter you cook the stock, the faster you convert collagen into gelatin. Cooking low and slow gives you good conversion while preventing fat, minerals and other gunk from emulsifying into your stock. Boiled stock will be cloudy, greasy and have a lower yield.

Cook it too long, though, and you get into a case of seriously diminishing returns. Throughout my testing, I tasted my stocks as they cooked, and I generally found about one and a half hours to be a reasonable endpoint—plenty of time for a flavorful, rich broth, but not so long that it's a major commitment to make it.

Why Homemade Bone Broth is Healthier than Store-bought. While store-bought stocks and broths aren't always artificial, they are processed and rely on additives and shortcuts to try to mimic the flavor of a homemade stock.

Yes, of course. It's excellent in a soup bowl with different add-ins, such as noodles, rice, or tender-crisp vegetables. But it's also enjoyable to simply sip it from a mug. It's a warming, comforting drink, especially in the winter or when you're under the weather.

But you may want to take a pause the next time: You can actually enhance the flavor of many dishes by swapping that plain ol' water out for broth — chicken, beef, or even vegetable.

Stock is thicker than broth due to the viscosity from collagen, it also contains more calories, fat, protein, vitamins and minerals than you will find in broth. Over the past few years, stock has gained popularity as a sipping drink, commonly known as bone broth, due to the rise of the Paleo, Whole30 and keto diets.