How To Make Vegetable Broth From Kitchen Scraps
Making broth doesn't have to take hours and hours - try our recipe for a simple recipe to make your own homemade nutrient dense veggie broth with just your kitchen scraps in 1 hour!
At the start of our CSA membership program last year I taught our members simple "discard" tips on what to do with left over veggies that may have spent too long in the fridge and the possibilities of what to do with veggie scraps. Over the year our family really enjoyed making the simple veggie broth and thought we would share it here.
In our kitchen we never throw away cooking scraps if they can be used elsewhere for example our eggshells go back into the soil with our compost and our veggie scraps go into a freezer bag for veggie broth... the ingredients are literally free if you think about it!
Before cutting, slicing. dicing or peeling veggies we always give them a rinse. For broth you can save peels, stalks and greenery. Our favorite veggies to include in our freezer bag for veggie broth are onions, garlic, carrots, mushroom and celery (think of flavors that go well together! - yellow squash? probably wouldn't be AS great). Try what flavors you like best to create your own recipe. A rule of thumb is to stay away from cruciferous veggies such as broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, etc. as they may leave a bitter unpleasant flavor (however, I can vouch that we have used brussels sprouts cuttings and loved the flavor).
BROTH RECIPE:
Ingredients:
- 1 gallon bag full of your favorite veggies scraps
- Redmond's Sea Salt
- Pepper
- 2 Bay Leaves
Directions:
Dump your frozen scraps into a large stock pot and fill with 6-8 cups of water. Include all other ingredients and add to taste. Bring ingredients to a boil, reduce heat to simmer and cook for at minimum 1 hour (uncovered). Strain the ingredients of your broth over a large bowl or additional stock pot (you only want the juice).
Storage Tips:
You will want your broth cooled completely before storing. Broth is great because it can be stored multiple ways and taste just as good later! Freeze broth in containers or freezer bags (often 4 cups per freezing for must recipes). Refrigerate broth in containers or mason jars up to 1 week.
Sweet Maple Farms TIP: We cooked ours down longer than 1 hour by accident and it created a more concentrated broth - you can do this as well and pour into ice cube trays to store for easy access to incorporate into meals.
Enjoy!
- Your Farmer,
Sophia B