If you’re anything like me, you’ve been knee-deep in a recipe only to realize you’re fresh out of vegetable stock. As you panic about ruining your batch of Hetty McKinnon’s one-pot mac and cheese, one small thought enters your mind: Can I just use water?
The simple answer is yes, it’s usually okay to substitute vegetable stock with water. In most recipes that call for vegetable stock, its main advantage over water is that it provides flavor, which is especially important if you're making vegetarian or vegan food that’s missing the richness from meat. “When you're missing the animal protein, you still want an umami factor,” BA senior food editor Andy Baraghani says.
According to McKinnon, whose most recent cookbook is To Asia, With Love, you can confidently substitute veg stock with water when you’re cooking with meat because so much of a dish's flavor comes from the meat itself. “But if you're cooking vegetarian food, I always think you need to build layers of flavors, and stock is just one of those layers.”
Unless you get low-sodium stock, most store-bought stocks are fairly salty, so one of the main elements you miss out on when replacing it with water is sodium content. If you are going to sub water for stock, McKinnon suggests adding salt and herbs (like thyme, bay leaves, and rosemary) to your water to compensate for the lost flavor. Her mac and cheese recipe, for example, calls for vegetable stock, but it’s totally okay to sub with water because the dish is loaded with herbs and aromatics. When a dish already has a lot going on, like a mixture of onions, garlic, ginger, and chiles cooked long and hard, agrees Baraghani, water can easily replace stock.
If you don’t keep stock on hand but you don’t want to lose out on flavor, McKinnon suggests dissolving bouillon cubes in water. Bouillon powder (which, like cubes, is made of dehydrated veggies and seasoning) is another easy way to add flavor to your vegetarian cooking. Plus, it’s versatile, can be used to season almost any dish that needs a little bit of a flavor kick, and is a great pantry staple—especially in these one-grocery-run-a-week times. McKinnon swears by Vegeta, which her mom used. “In many cases, [my mom] will add the powder straight into the pot,” she says. Jarred bouillon, like Better Than Bouillon, is another option.
