If bouillon cubes have turned up in a recipe or caught your eye at the store, here's what you need to use them with confidence and how to choose them, cook them, store them, what to substitute, and 40 recipes to try them in.

What are bouillon cubes?

A bouillon cube is dried, concentrated stock pressed into a small block, ready to dissolve into instant broth. Drop one in hot water and a pot of plain liquid turns savory in about a minute.

It is the original kitchen shortcut, sitting at the center of the bouillon family. The cube packs the salt, dried extract, fat, and seasoning of a simmered stock into a shelf-stable square that keeps for a year.

Cubes come in every flavor: chicken, beef, vegetable, fish, and more.

This page is about the cube itself. For the quirks of a particular flavor, follow the link to that one.

How to Use Them

The standard ratio is one cube per 1 cup (240 ml) of hot water, which gives you a stock-strength broth. Stir until the cube fully dissolves so the salt and flavor spread evenly through the pot.

That broth goes anywhere stock does. It is the quick base for a soup like Betty's Creamy Potato Soup, a Dutch Leek Soup, or a Loaded Chicken Soup.

You can also crumble a cube straight into a dish. Drop one into a simmering stew or the water for rice, and it melts in as everything cooks, the way it seasons a hearty Hamburg Soup.

The Salt Rule and Common Mistakes

Here is the rule that matters most with any bouillon. A cube is very high in salt, so a dish built on cubes needs little or no added salt of its own. Hold your salt until the end and taste before you add any.

Dissolve before you trust the seasoning. A cube that has not fully melted leaves salty pockets, so give it a minute in hot, not just warm, water and stir.

Resist adding a second cube for more flavor. Doubling up mostly doubles the salt and brings out a flat, processed taste rather than real depth.

If a broth tastes weak, reach for herbs and a splash of soy sauce instead.

Check the cube against your diet too. A chicken or beef cube is not vegetarian, and many cubes contain wheat or dairy, so read the wrapper when it matters.

Substitutes

The easiest swaps stay in the family. A teaspoon of bouillon granules or paste equals one cube, and a spoon of paste in particular keeps better once opened and lets you fine-tune the strength.

Better yet, use real or boxed stock when you have it, matching the flavor: a chicken cube to chicken stock, and so on. Cut back any added salt, since a carton is far milder than a cube.

In a pinch, water with a dash of soy sauce or miso and a pinch of salt covers a soup or braise. Thinner and less rounded, but it works.

Buying and Storing

Cubes come foil-wrapped in a box and keep almost indefinitely in a cool, dry cupboard, long past the few days a fresh stock lasts. The best-by date is about flavor fading, not safety.

Keep them dry and sealed. Bouillon is hygroscopic, so an open wrapper in a humid kitchen lets a cube soften and crumble. The foil is there to block moisture, so reseal the box.

Stock a couple of flavors and you always have a broth on hand. For the full picture on stock versus broth and how concentrated seasoning behaves, see the main stock page.

Quick facts

In Chinese

肉汤立方体

British (UK) term

Bouillon cubes

en français

cubes de bouillon

en español

cubos de caldo

Recipes using bouillon cubes

There are 40 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 40 recipes