Making stock from scratch sounds romantic in theory. In practice? Most of us are staring down a weeknight dinner, grabbing a carton from the pantry, and hoping for the best.
Even Katie Button—a James Beard Award-winning chef, cookbook author, and owner of Cúrate Bar De Tapas in Asheville, NC—doesn’t make homemade stock on the regular.
In fact, the shortcut she’s about to share was born out of a dinner-party emergency. “I was making a Spanish rice dish at home for last-minute dinner guests and grabbed some boxes of chicken stock from the store,” Button tells Good Housekeeping. “When I tasted it, it just fell flat, and I knew immediately the stock was the reason.”
“But I wasn’t ready to accept that I had to simmer homemade stock overnight every time I wanted good flavor,” she says. So she reached for an ingredient she already had in her refrigerator.
The result completely changed how she cooks at home.
The secret is adding anchovy paste—or miso
“When people talk about depth of flavor, they usually mean that fifth sense, umami, the one that’s hard to pinpoint and explain,” Button says.
Her solution? Fortify store-bought stock with a small amount of anchovy paste or miso before using it.
“Simply heat the stock and whisk in anchovy paste, or miso, then use it exactly as the recipe instructs,” she says. “It will make every soup, sauce, or dish better, guaranteed.”
At this point, you may be wondering: Won’t anchovy paste make everything taste fishy? According to Button, not at all.
“My go-to is anchovy paste regardless of the dish or type of stock, and the ratio I recommend won’t make anything taste fishy, it'll just give it that extra oomph it needs.”
If you’d rather keep things vegetarian, miso works beautifully too. “I've since made incredible vegan rice dishes using red miso with store-bought vegetable stock,” she says. “Red miso is richer and deeper and adds more umami than white miso.”
Here’s the exact ratio she uses
Fortunately, the trick couldn’t be easier. Button recommends:
- 1 teaspoon anchovy paste per cup of stock
- 1 teaspoon red miso per cup of stock
- 2 teaspoons white miso per cup of stock
If you’re deciding between the two, she generally recommends red miso for heartier dishes and white miso for more delicate ones. “I’d go with red miso for chicken or beef stock, and white miso for vegetable or fish stock since it’s more delicate,” she says.
The one thing you need to watch
There’s only one real caveat: salt. “Anchovy paste and miso are both salty, so they’re adding salt the recipe isn’t accounting for,” Button says. Instead of seasoning as you normally would, hold back until after the fortified stock has been added. “Salt to taste after the stock goes in,” she advises.
And yes, you absolutely can overdo it. “The finished dish should not taste like anchovy or miso,” Button says. “That means you’ve gone too far.”
Try it in rice, braises, soups, and more
Button says the trick works almost anywhere you’d use stock, but she has a few favorite applications. “Rice dishes, first and foremost,” she says.
One example is arroz con cosas (“rice with things”), a flexible one-pot rice dish inspired by paella that’s in her upcoming cookbook Spanish Accent: American Home Recipes with a Spanish Touch.
“The upgraded stock makes all the difference in the world.” She also recommends using fortified stock in braised meats, grits, grains, soups, and pan sauces. Her personal vote for the recipe that benefits most? “It’s a toss-up between risotto and chicken soup for me.”
Katie Button’s other favorite shortcut for busy cooks
Button is refreshingly realistic about weeknight cooking. “The idea of making everything from scratch every night is just not realistic,” she says.
Embrace smart shortcuts. Button thinks home cooks need to stop feeling guilty about taking a few culinary shortcuts—especially when it comes to stock. “Using store-bought stock is number one on that list,” she says. “And I’ll admit it: I buy frozen cooked rice packets and pop them in the microwave for a quick side.”
Prep now, cook later. Her biggest weeknight time saver isn’t a special ingredient—it’s mise en place, the restaurant practice of measuring, prepping, and organizing ingredients before you start cooking. “The art of mise en place is genuinely one of the most time-saving things anyone can bring into their home kitchen,” she says. Button often measures ingredients, chops vegetables, and sets everything out before leaving to pick up her kids from school so dinner comes together quickly when she gets home.
Don’t be afraid of anchovies. If there’s one lesson she hopes readers take away from her new cookbook, it's to give anchovies a chance. “Not being afraid of anchovies and anchovy paste,” she says. It’s not about making something taste like anchovy, it’s about deepening the flavor in a way that’s hard to explain until you try it. They are an incredible tool, and once you start using them, you won’t stop.
