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Is you go-to stock pretty much always a random collection of leftover veggies?

Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Dan Marek - Ask Me Anything (Office Hours)

Recorded

This event was on June 9, 2026

Join Chef Dan Marek in his virtual office as he welcomes all of your questions. This event was created for you and we encourage you to Ask Anything – from cooking techniques to course-specific questions, to how to turn your cooking passion into profit or simply hearing the perspective of a professional chef, Chef Dan is ready to answer them all.

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Question

Mitch Miglis

Is you go-to stock pretty much always a random collection of leftover veggies?

Answer

So yeah, my go-to stock typically is always a random collection of leftover veggies, just because I like to reuse everything. It's kind of the waste not, want not concept. So what I'll do is I'll take all the trimmings from my peeled carrots and ends of carrots and the bottoms of the celery, the onion skins, the pepper insides, and even the stems that come off the peppers sometimes, depending if they're not too woody. And then I'll also use the stems from mushrooms, like shiitake mushrooms. And I'll put all those things into a big freezer bag, basically, and keep it in my freezer. And when that fills up, I make stock out of it. So that's kind of my go-to for making a stock. It's just an easy, affordable thing to do. It doesn't take any extra time, and it's free. And I'm composting all the vegetables after I make them into a stock. So it's kind of a win-win-win that gets me three uses out of the same ingredient, which is pretty nice.

Dan Marek

Director of Plant-Based Culinary & Dev

*Dan Marek* is a chef educator who has been teaching vegan and vegetarian cooking for over 15 years. At Rouxbe, he is our Director of Plant-Based Culinary and Development where he helps develop content, classes and builds courses for many of our partners. Dan is a board member of Slow Food Austin, the Institute of Child Nutrition, and Conscious Capitalism. He has earned his BA in Journalism from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University and holds certificates in Nutrition from Cornell University. Prior to his role with Rouxbe, Dan worked with Whole Kids Foundation training teachers and food service at schools across the country on nutrition and culinary best practices. He also worked as a Healthy Eating Educator at Whole Foods Market’s flagship store in Austin, TX, was a personal chef for some of Austin’s elite business people, taught classes in culinary techniques at Austin Community College, The Natural Epicurean, and Le Cordon Bleu. Dan also regularly volunteers cooking or speaking about nutrition for the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation, Marathon Kids, Health Alliance for Austin Musicians, and the Ronald McDonald House Charities of Austin and Central Texas.