Homemade Vegetable Broth

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The cornerstone to great cooking is all in the ingredients. Fresh produce is a must, whether it’s vegetables, proteins or otherwise. Getting the best quality ingredients makes for the best food, as they add more flavor to the dish. So, when it comes to adding liquid to a dish, why add water when you can punch up the flavor with some delicious stock and broth? Our Homemade Vegetable Broth is a fantastic recipe to enhance any recipe you’re making that requires water. It is so easy to make, requiring the use of any leftover vegetables & vegetable scraps you have in the refrigerator

All it requires is to plan ahead a little bit. For example, if you’re planning on making a Risotto. Don’t use water (and don’t use store bought Broth!). Start cooking a little earlier if you can and whip up a delicious Homemade Vegetable Stock while you’re prepping the other ingredients

All it takes is to throw a few ingredients into a large saucepan. Fill it with water. Bring it to a boil, then cover and simmer for an hour. You’re left with the most delicious, flavored broth that is such a better alternative than simply adding water to a recipe! The flavors that good quality broth and stocks bring to a dish are outstanding!

Unlike other Homemade Broths and Stocks, Vegetable Broth takes far less time to make

The beauty of Vegetable Broth is you only need about 1 hour of cooking time to extract all the delicious flavor and nutrients from the vegetables. Which is great, because for most dishes that require Vegetable Stock, you can easily make the Stock as part of the cooking process for that meal

Compared to other types of stock like Chicken Stock, Beef Stock, and Lamb Stock which all require significantly longer cook times. Upwards of 6 hours if you are cooking them in the traditional method, or two hours in an Instant Pot

The reason for this is it takes a lot longer for meat-based broths and stocks to extract all the flavor from the bones. Vegetables already have a high natural water percentage, so the flavor and liquid will start to be extracted from them almost immediately once you start boiling them in water

What are the best Vegetables to use in Homemade Vegetable Broth?

The good news is that the best vegetables to use in Vegetable Broth and Vegetable Stock are typically some of the most common vegetables that are used in kitchens. The classic flavor building cooking combination of Carrots, Celery, and Onions are great to use in Vegetable Broth as they add such a beautiful depth of flavor

If you have some spare herbs such as Parsley, Rosemary, Cilantro, Thyme etc. lying around they can also be a great addition to the Broth. What we like to do is save the stems and storks from herbs after you’ve used them in cooking other dishes and use them for Stock and Broths. Stems of herbs typically aren’t used in most recipes, just the leaves. So, this is a great application for them to avoid any wastage

The vegetables to avoid when making a Homemade Vegetable Broth are root vegetables such as Potatoes, Turnips, Beets, etc. Also try to avoid leafy vegetables like Kale, Lettuce, and the tops of Carrots and Celery Sticks. These vegetables tend to leave quite a bitter taste in the broth, so are best avoided

Try searing the vegetables on a high heat before adding the water to infuse even more flavor into the Vegetable Stock

This is an optional step, but its really easy and does add more flavor to the broth. Simply place your vegetables cut side down directly onto the surface of the pot (eg: If you’ve cut the Onion in half, place the openly exposed Onion side onto the pot), which will sear and caramelize the vegetable. It can create a lovely, charred flavor that is subtle, but present in the Broth

Making your own Vegetable Broth is cheaper, and much healthier than the store-bought stuff

Creating your own broth requires using leftover vegetables you’ve already bought. Instead of throwing them away you’re re-purposing them into a delicious dish. So ‘technically’ it’s not costing you anything to make the dish

Homemade Vegetable Broth is also way healthier than what you are buying from the supermarket. Typically, the store-bought broths and stocks have a load of added Salt in them to make them shelf stable. This is great for convenience, but who wants that much excess sodium in their diets. It can also completely change the composition of a dish when you add that much Salt

Finally, the beauty of a Homemade Broth is you know exactly what you’re putting into it, and you can tailor the broth to the recipe you’re making. For instance, if you’re making a Mushroom Risotto, then make a homemade broth that is mushroom based. It’ll significantly enhance the flavor you’re trying to get out of the dish!

Save your kitchen scraps to make Broth!

When you are preparing any meal that includes vegetables, try to get into the good habit of not instantly throwing the scraps in the trash. For example, if you’re peeling Carrots, Onions, or Squash / Pumpkin, don’t throw the peel away as those scraps can be repurposed to make a beautiful Homemade Broth in no time

Just store them in a Ziploc bag and place them in the freezer. When you run out of Broth you can simply pull them out of the freezer and whip up a fresh batch following this recipe

Another good habit to get into if you are really fancy (and have enough space on your kitchen bench) is to have a separate container for Stock-suitable Kitchen Scraps. Kind of like a mini trash can that sits on your kitchen bench. You can pick these up from most stores like Walmart or specialty kitchen stores

Like everything with home cooking, it’s all about establishing good habits. Once you get used to the idea of saving scraps for Broth, you’ll be doing it all the time! To the point you will likely run out of room in your freezer for all the scraps and / or frozen Broths you’ve made!

Some delicious recipes you can make with our Homemade Vegetable Broth

Creativity is endless when it comes to the application of Vegetable Broth in your cooking. Here are a few of our favorite recipes to make using this great ingredients. You should try some today and let us know in the comments how it went!

• Butternut Squash and Mushroom Risotto
• Southern Cheesy Grits
• Classic French Onion Soup
• Chicken and Leek Pie

Homemade Vegetable Broth Recipe

Ingredients

• 2 Carrots, halved
• ½ Onion
• 2 Celery Sticks, halved
• 5 cups of Water
  
  

Optional additional ingredients

• ½ cup Kitchen scraps (eg: Carrot / Onion peel)
• Asparagus Ends
• Bell Peppers, halved
• Herbs Stems (eg: Cilantro, Parsley, Thyme, Rosemary)
  
  

Instructions

1. Place the ingredients open cut side down on a large saucepan over high heat. Seer for 5 minutes until the vegetables start to caramelize
2. Pour in the Water then bring to a Boil. Reduce the heat to a Simmer and cover
3. Simmer for 1 hour. There is no real need to stir, however you can stir once midway through the cook to ensure all the vegetables are being cooked
4. Carefully strain the Broth into a large bowl through a sieve. Ideally, place a piece of cheesecloth into the sieve before straining to capture as many particles as possible from the broth
   
   

Use what you need immediately for cooking, and freeze what is remaining for future use. We like to measure out the broth in 1 cup increments and store them in separate freezer bags. That way you can defrost only what you need in the future

Note: This recipe will yield approximately 4 cups of Homemade Vegetable Broth. To adjust the quantity of Broth you require, scale up or town the ingredients accordingly. Eg: For 8 cups, double the ingredients. For 2 cups, halve them

Happy Cooking!