Make Your Own Veggie Broth!

For a long time, we were buying boxed broth several times a month for all of the different recipes we were making. Then it occurred to us- veggie broth is pretty much just vegetables, salt, and water, so why not start making our own? As an added bonus, it can make your kitchen smell amazing while it simmers.

Broth is used in many different soups, sauces, gravy, etc. Since we cook with vegetables all the time, we keep a container in the fridge where we store vegetable waste for later use in broth-making. Today, we're preparing a vegetable broth for a vegan minestrone we'll be making later in the week.

For this round of broth-making, we're keeping it pretty simple with the ingredients: onion, bell pepper, carrot, celery, and lemon. Other times, we've successfully made broth with leftover broccoli stems, mushrooms, garlic, and potatoes. It's good to decide roughly how much broth you want to make at a time, but it's ok to just make a guess (broth keeps pretty well in the freezer for a long time)! Typically, we choose a few containers or pitchers and fill them with water, then add that amount into the pot. Instead of the stovetop method, using a slow-cooker on low for 6-8 hours will really let the flavors steep into the water.

Homemade Veggie Broth

Ingredients (mostly optional):​

• Onion: usually just a slice or two is fine. We often use the ends that are cut off when dicing onions for other recipes, and remove the papery outer layers.
• Bell Pepper: you can slice off the top 1/2 inch or so and save the remaining pepper for other recipes.
• Carrots/Celery: we like to slice them into long pieces, for maximum surface area.
• Lemon: adding this little bit of citrus to your broth can brighten up the flavor, but definitely isn't required.
• Mushroom stems
• Broccoli Stems
• Garlic: a little goes a long way here. Normally we love putting tons of garlic in recipes, but in this case, the flavor will definitely be there since the broth will be simmering for such a long time.
• Parsley: another optional add-in, depending on whether the recipes you're using the broth for can feature this flavor.
• Potatoes: same as with the carrots and celery, cut into long, flat slices to get as much contact with the water as possible.
• Salt: adding a good pinch of salt doesn't hurt, but sometimes we like to leave it out and adjust the seasoning once we're cooking whatever it is the broth is used for.

Directions:

1. Bring desired amount of water to a boil in a large pot.
2. Toss in vegetables, add salt if desired. 
3. Turn heat down to Low.
4. Simmer for apx. 1 hr.
5. Remove vegetables with a strainer, and allow liquid to cool slightly before storing in fridge or freezer.

Got any methods or ingredients you like for your broth? Let us know in the comments!

Tags

Basics

broth