What are the differences between stock, bouillon and broth?

Question

Great answers. I always have bouillon cubes on hand and can always find broth in the grocery aisle. However, I made a white bean chili 2 days ago and it called for stock. Yikes, being a rule follower I freaked out, only to finally resort to using the bouillon cubes after not finding "stock" anywhere in the store. (I hope none of you cooks are laughing at me). Anyway, it turned out so-so and my husband and I blamed it on the bouillon! I guess it was more than the bouillon :) Thanks for the help everyone!

Answer 1

All these terms share something in meaning and ingredients at some level. They are similar but the differences are subtle.

Stock is usually more complex and concentrated--typically used as an ingredient to make something else. Broth is the liquid something else was cooked in. Bouillon (french origin) is a light stock used to poach fish.

As always, marketing plays a large part in the confusion around these terms.

Detail:

"Stock. Etymologically, stock is simply something one keeps a stock of for use. Nowadays usually conveniently conjured up by adding water to a commercial preparation (the term stock cube is not recorded until as recently as the 1960s; American English still prefers the more refined-sounding bouillon cube, which dates from the 1930s), stock is traditionaly the product of a pot kept constantly simmering on the hob, to which odds and ends of meat, bones vegetables, etc. are added from time to time to keep up a continuous stock for flavoury broth as a basis for soups, stews, sauces, etc...In practice, few households or restaurants have the sort of constantly available source of low heat necessary for this perpetually self-renewing stockpot, and most stock is made afresh in individual batches as needed."
---An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 325)

"Etymologically, broth is that which has been brewed'; the word comes ultimately from the same prehistoric Germanic source as modern English brew. From earliest times it was used for the liquid in which something is boiled', and the something' could be vegetable as well as animal...By the seventeenth century it was becoming largely restricted to the liquid in which meat is boiled', and more particularly to a thin soup made from this with the addition of vegetables, ceral grains, etc. (the term Scotch broth dates from at least the early eighteenth century)...The proverb "Too many cooks spoil the broth' is first recorded in Sir Balthazar Gerbier's Three Chief Principals of Magnificent Building, 1665."
---An A to Z of Food and Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 44)

"Court bouillon. A court bouillon (in French literally short bouillon') is a light stock used mainly for poaching fish or shellfish in. It is made from water and the usual mixture of stock vegetables (onions, carrots, celery) and herbs, with the optional addition of white wine or (particularly for freshwater fish) vinegar. The term has been used in English texts since the early eighteenth century, but Eliza Acton in her Modern Cookery (1845) made it clear that cooking with court bouillon was still far from an everyday event: court bouillon--a preparation of vegetables and wine, in which (in expensive cookery) fish is boiled.'"
---An A to Z of Food & Drink, John Ayto [Oxford University Press:Oxford] 2002 (p. 92-3)

Answer 2

These are very nebulous terms. The main difference is the amount of salt. Stock contains no added salt, broth contains some, and bouillon lots. Canned bouillon may be more highly concentrated. Most canned, powdered or cubed versions are unpalatable. Basically stock is make from bones, sometimes caramelized for flavor, and veggies; broth from bones, meat and veggies. Bouillon can be concentrated but the definition can be whatever the manufacturer wants. For me, stock is the best! .

Answer 3

Stock is made by boiling the bones, broth is made be boiling the meat, but I'm not sure about the bouillon. The only way I know how to make bouillon is to melt the cube in water.

Answer 4

Stock is watered down broth, bouillon is a cube that dissolves into broth, and broth is heated falavored water.

Answer 5

Bouillon comes in cubes that you must add to water to dilute. As far as stock & broth...I have no clue.

Answer 6

water I'll let the cooks expand on this Broth is the drippings from a dish that is cooking Stock is a base made from cooking something to lower the water content ( this might even be right come on cooks) HEY (where are the people that paste recipes from cookbooks ?)

Answer 7

not much.

i would use whatever i had in the house if i were following a recipe.
However, within each of those, some are richer/more flavorful/less salty than others.

Answer 8

Concentration !

Answer 9

You left out consomme'.