How To Instantly Deepen The Flavor Of Store-Bought Stock

Stock from a box or a can — has any packaged ingredient ever been so maligned? Store-bought stock is a shortcut to delicious soup (or even chicken stock soup cocktails for the adventurous) and doesn't deserve the hate it gets from food snobs, but it's an unfortunate fact that it has an essential blandness that just doesn't compete with stock you made yourself by boiling bones and vegetable scraps for hours on end. Still, that doesn't mean that you need to ditch the ready-made stock entirely ... you just need to dress it up. The answer, says blogger and recipe developer Marissa Stevens of Pinch and Swirl, is a dash of fish sauce.

"One or two teaspoons is usually enough to add a savory backbone, especially to brothy soups like chicken, lentil, or veggie-based ones," Stevens tells Foodie. You needn't shy away from fish sauce due to its potentially intense smell, but trust in the fact that, in small doses, the Asian condiment adds a powerful umami kick that is capable of breathing new life into boring stock without any of the fishy funk. Just as you learned what to know when buying canned soup, however, there is a body of knowledge involved in tinkering with fish sauce in stock. The main fact you have to respect is that a little goes a long way.

Don't just pour fish stock directly into your soup willy-nilly, Stevens warns, speaking from the voice of experience: "I've done this and ended up with soup that smelled like a dock." Rather, use a light hand and spoon just a bit of sauce into your soup, stir it well to allow the flavors to blend and meld, and taste the product carefully to assess where you're at. Tasting is really the biggest part of this equation. "[I]f you're using anything acidic like vinegar or lemon juice, taste again after that — sometimes it balances everything out and you don't need more fish sauce at all," Stevens cautions. More than any recipe, your tastebuds know exactly how much potent fish sauce you can get away with using.

Sometimes, the answer is that you shouldn't use it at all. "It's not a great fit for anything creamy. I've tried it in tomato soup once and instantly regretted it," Stevens cautions, speaking of fish sauce. Also, before you go adding fish sauce, make sure that you have used a logical line of troubleshooting on your stock first. Is it seasoned properly? Is it fresh? Keep in mind how long chicken stock lasts after opening — it's not a product with an infinite lifespan. If everything else looks good, feel free to experiment with fish sauce, provided that you do it prudently.