Mushroom stock

A quiet habit worth keeping

I almost never set out to make mushroom stock.

It usually happens because I’m cooking something else—stuffed mushrooms, a pie, a risotto, or anything where the stems are trimmed away and set aside. They’re too useful to throw out, and over time I’ve fallen into the habit of turning them into a small bottle of stock that lives in the fridge, ready to add depth to whatever comes next.

Sometimes I’m making it once a week, sometimes not for a while at all. That feels right. It’s not something to schedule—it’s something to notice.

This is a very gentle stock. It’s not dark or aggressively mushroomy. It’s there to add umami rather than to announce itself.

How I make it

When I have mushroom stems to spare, I put them in a small saucepan with four or five pieces of dashi kombu and about a litre of cold water. Nothing fancy—no roasting, no hard boiling.

I bring it slowly up to a bare simmer and let it tick along quietly for around twenty minutes. That’s long enough for the mushrooms to give up their savouriness and for the kombu to do its quiet work, without tipping the stock into bitterness.

Once it’s ready, I strain it, let it cool, and decant it into a bottle or jar. It keeps happily in the fridge for several days.

It’s particularly useful in vegetarian cooking, where you want savoury depth without reaching for soy sauce or stock cubes.

Like many good kitchen habits, it exists to make the next meal just a little better, almost without you realising why.