Chicken stock concentrate is awesome for flavoring any recipe. There’s a distinctive umami character to it that really adds a lot. If you don’t have any, however, what can you use instead? Here are 11 best chicken stock concentrate substitutes.
Our favorite chicken stock concentrate substitutes arebone stock, homemade chicken stock, vegetable stock, a simple broth with added MSG, beer, miso paste, and Japanese dashi. In this article we’ll look at our favorite chicken stock concentrate substitutes and why we love them.
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What is Chicken Stock Concentrate?
Simply put, chicken stock concentrate is the reduced liquid left after boiling a whole chicken, bones included, with spices, vegetables, and salt. It is a very important ingredient for adding umami flavoring and plenty of depth and dimension to any recipe.
Chicken stock, historically speaking, has been available in a variety of forms. Chicken soup is probably the most commonly used form of chicken stock.
The basic form of chicken soup is boiled chicken broth with spices, herbs, and whatever veggies you have available. You can enjoy chicken soup on its own or with other ingredients depending on what you prefer.
Types of Chicken Stock
Before looking at chicken stock concentrate substitutes, we’re going to look at the different types of chicken stock. While making chicken stock is simple, you can condense and prepare it in a variety of different ways.
You can make basic chicken stock using only a few key ingredients, including a few bone-in chicken cuts, onions, garlic, whole spices, salt, and other flavorings, adjusting water to your own preference.
Diluted Chicken Stock
Making diluted chicken stock is easy. You just need to cook all the other ingredients for 3-4 hours, allowing the water to tenderize the chicken, render the fat, and absorb all the oils, nutrients, and flavors from the ingredients on hand.
Once the essence of your other ingredients has transferred into the water, you can take the chicken out, using it separately if you like. You can also typically discard the other flavorings. They won’t have much flavor at this point and their extremely soft texture isn’t that useful for most recipes.
This diluted, watered down chicken stock is the variant that most people are familiar with. While it’s watered down, it still offers a huge amount of awesome chicken flavor.
You can use this watery stock to make a broad range of recipes, including sauces, soups, and gravies. You can boil rice in it, too. There are a few disadvantages inherent to this kind of stock, however.
Storage can be difficult and ingredient. It also doesn’t have the intense, potent chicken flavor you’ll find in many restaurants. Concentrated chicken stock is widely preferred for this very reason.
Concentrated Chicken Stock
This is virtually identical to diluted chicken stock, but the excess water has been evaporated. We’ll reduce the diluted stock for 1-2 hours, offering a few cups of powerful concentrated stock.
You could, if you want, reduce your stock until you are left only with a gelatinous mixture. This jelly-like reduction has plenty of flavor, a mixture of chicken fat, broth, veggies, and other ingredients.
Concentrated chicken stock is great for adding flavoring to many recipes, it’s easy to store, and it can have a longer shelf life than regular stock thanks to its lower moisture content. You also don’t need to use a lot of it when cooking.
1-2 tablespoons is enough to flavor most recipes, and if your stock is already very salty, you may not need to use any additional seasoning.
Powdered Chicken Stock
Powdered chicken stock is the most concentrated form of commercially available chicken stock. Generally, its production necessitates industrial-grade processes. Manufacturers will often use additional methods and ingredients to highly process the stock. It’s concentrated and dehydrated, and great for seasoning cooked rice, fried chicken, fritters, and French fries.
Why Substitute Chicken Stock Concentrate?
The most obvious answer is that chicken stock is not vegan.
There are, fortunately, plenty of vegan stock alternatives. You can get the same intense flavor without using any actual chicken if you know how to. Our favorite substitutes come very close to the real thing, and with correctly chosen seasonings, we think it’s very hard to tell the difference.
Preparing chicken stock also takes a lot of time, and if you’re short on time, it can be hard to justify making concentrated chicken stock.
Best Concentrated Chicken Stock Substitutes
Here are our favorite vegan (and non vegan) chicken stock substitutes.
1. Vegetable Stock
This one’s a little obvious. You can use an all-vegetable umami entourage instead of chicken stock. Generally vegetable stock can be made from a mixture of carrots, cabbage, celery stem, garlic, ginger, mushrooms, and more, which gives a similar flavor to chicken stock.
You can use an array of aromatics, including coriander seeds, black peppercorns, star anise, cloves, and cinnamon to further flavor the vegetable stock. The more concentrated it is, the better it will taste.
2. Japanese Dashi
Dashi refers to the various broths prepared in the Japanese culinary tradition.
Dashi, on its own, forms the basis of many Japanese soups. Commercial dashi products will add plenty of flavor to your dishes, too.
While dashi can be prepared using a combination of dried bonito flakes, dried sardines, dried shrimp, and other flavorful seafood ingredients, it can come remarkably close to chicken stock. It won’t be vegan, however.
❗You can also make dashi at home using traditional Japanese ingredients, giving you full control over the flavor profile.
3. Beef Bone Broth
This is a pretty easy, straightforward substitute for concentrated chicken stock. You can make it by simmering beef bones in water with spices and veggies until you wind up with a highly concentrated broth.
It is heavier and fattier than chicken broth because it includes bone marrow. This is great for recipes that demand a meatier flavor and heartier texture.
❗ We recommend using beef bone broth in moderation when substituting for chicken stock concentrate.
4. Clear MSG Broth
You can make a simple vegetable broth using MSG crystals. You only need high-quality MSG salt, an assortment of vegetables, and water. This flavoring agent is widely used in restaurants and packaged foods.
5. Bouillon Cubes
Chicken bouillon cubes are a great, conveniently concentrated substitute for concentrated chicken stock. A single cube can be enough to season a main course. You could also make a stock concentrate by dissolving a cube in 1-200 mL of hot water. These cubes come in both vegan and non-vegan varieties.
6. Homemade Chicken Stock
This is a great alternative to chicken stock concentrate. You can customize it at home using whatever ingredients you like. Homemade stock recipes can be healthy, versatile, and devoid of any harmful preservatives or additional ingredients you often find in commercially available stocks.
7. Miso Paste
Yet another Japanese addition to the list, miso paste is made from fermented soybeans, salt, and koji. It is widely used in Japanese cuisine. It has an intense umami flavor similar to that of concentrated chicken stock. Miso paste is also typically vegan.
8. Soy Sauce
Soy sauce has a dark, complex flavor that can add a lot to any recipe. Real soy sauce is made from fermented soy beans, with a strong umami flavor profile. It’s great for soups, salads, stir fries, and sauces.
9. Gravy Granules
Packaged gravy granules can be a quick, convenient alternative to chicken stock concentrate. They usually contain many of the same ingredients as chicken stock concentrate as it is. By adjusting the quantity of water you can tailor the texture to your preference.
10. Beer
Most quality beers already contain salt, sugar, and hints of fermented cereal and hops. When mixed with savory ingredients, beer adds complexity and acidity to any recipe. It’s often used in batters, sauces, and gravies. You can also reduce beer to use it as a concentrated flavoring agent.
11. Worcestershire Sauce
Worcestershire Sauce’s complex umami is a great substitute for chicken stock concentrate. You can use it pretty much the same way as stock concentrate as it usually contains fish sauce, allowing it to enhance the existing flavors in any recipe.
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