Top Recipes with Stock

Making your own stock is seriously easy to do and works with almost any meat carcass. Beef or lamb bones need to simmer for at least twice as long as poultry, and if you're vegetarian you can use twice the amount of veg and omit the bones. But let's be truthful here: stock might make for a tasty dinner, but making soup and risotto over and over again can get boring.

But, there are some risotto recipes that are worthy of that stock you froze last week. For those days when good intentions lead you to buy salad, but crap weather leads you crave comfort food, try our salad risotto. When nothing but gin will do, we've even put that in arancini recipe. You don't even need to use rice, pearl spelt or barley risotto gives you a thoroughly satisfying dinner.

If you do fancy soup, Holly's gorgeous peanut soup is an absolute must. It might not be spring, but any seasonal vegetables will work in the world's prettiest minestrone. Any of our soup favourites will make a brilliant supper. Add some spice and make a perfect ramen.

Or forget soup and risotto altogether. Make sweet and sour chicken or chicken in lemon and garlic sauce, add it to cous cous or reduce it down and dress some pasta. You can even make a chocolate lasagne (no, really).

If you just can't be bothered to spend ages in the kitchen, stock is your best friend. Lamb with orzo and braised boozy venison are as delicious as they are easy to chuck together. And if you want to leave something bubbling all day, our slow cooker beef curry recipe will work a treat.

Try your hand at our pie recipes - this beef and chestnut is tasty and simple, so are these simple chicken and asparagus pasties and gluten free Scotch pies. For easy meals without meat, you can't go wrong with vegetable biryani or jambalya. Or be inspired by beans and go for feijoada or a black beans in a mole sauce.

For ham stock, try our ham hock and puy lentils, or glazed ham. Now, you know how to put the leftover stock from these recipes to good use!

For even more inspiration, check out the rest of our top ten recipe posts.