How To Make Mirepoix for Stocks, Soups and Sauces

Onions, carrots and celery are a trio of ingredients that can really get you cooking. The combination of veggies is called mirepoix (meer-pwah) in some culinary circles and it's the trifecta of ingredients for stocks, soups, sauces and many other things.

To create mirepoix, all you'll need is the vegetables and a sharp chef's knife or santoku knife to do the chopping. The more uniform the pieces, the more evenly they'll cook, and the smaller the pieces, the more quickly the flavors will be released into a stock.

To chop the onions, cut the onion in half stem to root. Remove the skin, lay one onion half flat on the cutting board and cut off the stem, leaving the root intact. Make a series of horizontal cuts starting toward the bottom of the onion, working your way up.

Then, make vertical cuts using the tip of your knife, keeping in mind the size of the dice you hope to achieve.

Slice through the patchwork of cuts to create a uniform dice.

Here's a video that might help.

For the carrots, you can choose to leave the peel on or remove it. Either way will work to make vegetable stock. If you leave the peel on, be sure to scrub the carrots before dicing. When dicing celery, you can include the leaves since the vegetables will eventually be strained out.

What's great about mirepoix is that you can do all of your chopping ahead of time and freeze the vegetable mixture to use, as needed. Since flavor is the most important factor, not texture, freezing works.