Making Your Own Ham Base for Gravy

[highchef]

I usually put some ham base in my gravy on sunday mornings, but am thinking of making my own. Have you done this?

[Katie Meadow]

I make ham stock and keep it in the freezer for beans, soups, etc., but I never heard of ham base. I looked it up and low and behold it's a common product. Some seem more natural than others. The creepiest ones have "ham flavor" as the main source of ham. The instructions on one of these products says to use 1 T base to 1 cup water. That's awfully strong concentrate.

I can't see how you would make your own except to make a very strong ham stock, and then cook it down a lot, the advantage being economical storage and the ability to control the strength of the flavor by diluting as desired. I can see how it would be useful for fast gravy; you wouldn't have to spend time cooking down the stock. On the other hand, it takes a fair amount of heat/energy and time to cook down stock to that degree of concentrate, no?

[rotuts]

Ive been using Minor's various 'bases' for some time. I keep them frozen and stock up ( ) once a year when they have free/reduced shipping.

I use them for the salt component in gravy or stock for soups.

Ive tried some of the low-salt versions but have not decided on those yet.