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Homemade Vegetable Broth

I remember the first time I made soup with homemade vegetable broth. I was furious. The quality of the flavors were so radically improved that it made me angry to think I had been duped into believing the bitter celery water you can buy in stores was anything like the real stuff. A good rule of thumb when it comes to any broth (or wine, for that matter): If you wouldn’t want to drink it all by itself, don’t cook with it. It’s as simple as that.

Homemade vegetable broth is such a perfect representation of the One Ingredient Diet – when you start out with fresh, whole ingredients, you end up with food that is infinitely more delicious. Trust me, give it a shot and you’ll be blown away. Making your own stock is the one thing you can do to totally transform the quality of your soups, stews, risottos, and more. It seems like a lot of work, but literally takes 10 minutes of active prep and just 1 hour of simmering.

Vegetable Broth

Makes ~2 quarts

Ingredients:

  • 2 yellow onions
  • 3 carrots
  • 4 stalks of celery
  • 2 roma tomatoes
  • 1 green leek
  • 1/2 cup button mushrooms
  • 4 sprigs of parsley
  • 4 sprigs of thyme
  • 2 teaspoons of black peppercorns
  • 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
  • 1 tablespoon olive oil
  • 10 cups of filtered water

Vegetable Broth Pot

Background

In addition to far superior flavors, making your own stock also gives you so much more control. While most broths have lots of salt and strong flavors like garlic, what if your recipe needs to be mild? Why not make a more neutral broth and then add the right flavors directly into the recipe? That’s the philosophy behind this broth and the reason it doesn’t have garlic or excessive spices.

Step One

Dice all the veggies. The ones in the photo above are actually too big. You’ll extract much more flavor if you take an extra 2 minutes to loosely chop the onions, carrots, celery, tomatoes, leek, and mushrooms. They don’t have to be pretty, but 1/4 inch dices will yield more flavor than 1 inch dices.

Step Two

Sweat the veggies. This is a hugely important step in my opinion. A lot of people simply add the veggies right to the boiling water, but I think this is a mistake. In your large stockpot, add a tablespoon of olive oil with all of the veggies and give them 5 minutes to soften before adding the water. This will help release even more flavors.

Step Three

Simmer. Add about 10 cups of filtered water (high quality water is important, since the final broth is 99% water). Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat, cover with a lid, and allow to simmer for about an hour.

Step Four

Strain. Remove the broth from the heat and allow to cool for 10 minutes. Using a cheesecloth or kitchen strainer, strain the liquid into a large bowl. Discard or compost the veggies (don’t worry, they served valiantly). Store the broth, refrigerated, in mason jars for up to a week, or as ice cubes in the freezer for even longer.

Armed with this delicious broth, why not try a pea soup? Risotto? Or even some cornbread stuffing? 🙂

Vegetable Broth

6 Comments

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  1. I am so happy you created and shared this recipe for vegetable broth! Your comment about basics like broth and wine needing to be good enough to stand alone it a great guideline. I try to buy organic ingredients so why mess it up with inferior stock!

    • Thanks, Marian! Exactly… and it’s especially important to use organic ingredients for things like broth because they become so concentrated.

  2. Suggestion to save on waste and time: I make my veggie broth in a crockpot overnight and instead of wasting whole veggies I store up my veggie scraps in a freezer bag until it’s full and use those. Onion ends and skins, celery tops and bottoms, green bean ends, zucchini ends, garlic skins, stems from fresh herbs, carrot peels (cleaned before peeling) and ends. Once the bag is full I add all to a crockpot, fill to about 1/2-1 inch from the top with water and set on low before bed. Strain in the morning and discard or compost veggie scraps. Tastes great and less waste. Enjoy.

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