Easy, Cheap & Healthy--Homemade Vegetable Broth

At least half my recipes call for some form of broth or bouillon. If you've ever taken a closer look at store-bought broth or bouillon, most of it is loaded with sodium and chemical additives. Striving for a cleaner style of eating, I learned to make my own vegetable broth. I've discovered how ridiculously easy and cheap it is!

Here's what you do. Get a plastic container and start putting your vegetable scraps in it. Any vegetable scraps (as long as they're not, like, poisonous or something). I put in onion skin and tips, carrot/potato/sweet potato peelings, green bean snaps, and so on. Store your container in the freezer and just put in your veggie scraps whenever you have them. If you have any veggies that you can't use before they go bad, throw them in your freezer container too. Just make sure everything is rinsed well.

I don't put any tomato scraps or products in--I often use my broth to cook dried beans, and the acid in the tomatoes can make the beans tough. If you're not going to cook dried beans, then tomato products are fine.

When you're ready to make broth, take a big soup pot. The bigger, the better. Dump your frozen veggie scraps in there. Then, throw in whatever veggies you have in your fridge. I always put in celery, onion, carrot, spinach, and mushrooms. Nothing needs to be chopped, although I cut onions into quarters to make sure they get well distributed. If you want, you can also add some salt and pepper, fresh or minced garlic, bay leaf, any other seasonings you'd like. I usually do a whole head of garlic and some dried bay leaf, and fresh basil if I have any.

Here's how my last batch looked:



Fill the pot almost all the way full with water. Cover and bring to a boil; reduce the heat and simmer for 1-4 hours. You want all the veggies to be very tender.

When you're all done, strain out the veggies and seasonings. I use a mesh strainer over a large bowl. Then you can portion your broth out. I use a variety of freezeable containers, so I have 1-cup, 2-cup, 3-cup and 5-cup portions in the freezer. You could also store them in freezer safe ziplocks or old broth cartons. When you want to use your broth, just take some out of the freezer and defrost in the microwave.

This way I do not ever spend any money on broth. It's very healthy because you get lots of nutrients from your veggies without any of the calories. It's so easy, just dump everything in the pot and give it an occasional stir. I'm sure you could even make it in a crock pot if you wanted. I use it in the place of any broth a recipe calls for and it is a nice, neutral flavor.