Dehydrated Vegetable Stock Powder

Onions or leeks, carrots, and celery are the base of this dehydrated vegetable stock powder, with a little nutritional yeast and salt. It makes a delicious liquid stock for soups and stews when added to water

This homemade stock recipe uses whole vegetables. It’s also completely vegan and gluten-free.
You can use the parts of the vegetable that are so often discarded too. The greens of the leeks and the feathery tops of carrots, the leaves of the celery. This means there is no waste in this homemade vegetable stock.

It’s all shredded finely and dried together. Shredding it, or chopping it first really helps to speed up the dehydrating process.

The drying process

The dehydrated vegetable powder is dried at a low temperature for a long period of time until all the water content in the vegetables has gone. The drying process is long and slow to ensure the moisture has gone in the whole vegetable (including the middle), and not just dried out the edges.

For best results, use a food dehydrator. This has consistent drying temperatures and multiple dehydrator trays to dry lots of vegetables at a time. The drying time it takes to dehydrate them depends on the drying temperature and the thickness of the veggies.

Vegetable powders are such a great way to prolong the life of your vegetables and bring some extra nutrients into your diet.

It is possible to dehydrate vegetables in an oven too but considering a large number of vegetables are dried at once, a dehydrator with many trays is a lot easier and more effective.

It usually takes around 4-8 hours to dry the vegetables and it really depends on how small they were chopped. This powder will last up to a year if dried correctly. You just need to ensure that every last bit of moisture is gone.

Equipment

You will need a food dehydrator. The dehydrator used in this post was a 9-tray Excalibur dehydrator.

The vegetables

The key vegetables in the vegetable stock powder are leek (or onion), carrots, and celery. As long as you’ve got those in bulk, you can add any other vegetables to this veggie stock. There are some base amounts listed below in the ingredients list, but it also depends on what vegetables you’ve got available. This is a very versatile recipe.

In the summer when zucchini and tomatoes are in abundance, you can add those in too.

Once it’s dried, it’s blended into a powder in a food processor along with rock salt and nutritional yeast.
The nutritional yeast is optional, but it does add a really nice and deeply savory flavor. The rock salt enhances the flavor too, though how much you want to add is up to you.

Method

Finely shred or chop the vegetables. The smaller they are, the quicker they will dry. 

Place all the vegetables and herbs in single layers onto dehydrating trays or oven trays. 

Dry the vegetables at around 125°F/50°C for around 5-8 hours until completely dry. The smaller you chop or shred everything the faster it will dry. If drying in the oven, open the oven door occasionally to let out the steam. 

Once everything is crunchy and has dried completely, let it cool at room temperature for 2 hours. Add it to a blender along with the nutritional yeast and rock salt. 

Blitz it into a fine powder. Store the vegetable powder in an airtight jar. If dried thoroughly it lasts for more than a year.

Add it to water and use it in your favorite soup recipes!

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