How to Make Your Own Vegetable Broth... So Easy!

I am such a frugal foodie!  I hate to see anything useful go to waste in my kitchen.

During the winter months, when I am making more soups and stews, I like to make my own vegetable broth, to have it at the ready when needed.  Vegetable bullion cubes are expensive to purchase.  And this broth is a great vegetarian substitute when a soup recipe calls for chicken broth, too.

So, when I am preparing vegetables such as carrots, celery, and zucchini, instead of discarding the washed ends and parings, I keep them in a zipper lock plastic bag in the refrigerator.  Once the bag is full, I use the contents to make nutritious and flavorful vegetable broth. 

The flavor is a little different every time I make it, as it totally depends on the vegetables used.  But, I like to make it so it can be used in a variety of ways so I don't use the cut ends of onions,  garlic cloves or other strong-flavored vegetables such as cabbage or turnips.  You could use them if you knew that the flavor of the resulting broth would be suitable for a given stew or soup, however.

It only takes about 45 minutes to an hour to have delicious and healthy homemade veggie broth.  Here is how I do it.

To prepare the broth I take the bag of veggies out of of the fridge...

and I empty it into my soup pot.

Then I fill it up with about halfway with water... nope, don't bother to measure.

I cover the pot, and turn the heat to HIGH till it boils, then turn it to LOW to allow it to simmer for about 40 minutes. 

I remove it from the hot stover burner and allow it to cool for about 10 minutes.  It is still steaming in this picture.

Then I strain the broth from the cooked veggies.  I like to pour it into a fine strainer set over a bowl in the sink because the pot of broth and vegetables is heavy and if there is any spillage, it is easy to clean up.

I place the cooled broth in a container and keep it in the fridge for up to a week, or freeze/thaw when ready to use.  This batch resulted in almost 3 quarts of rich vegetable broth.

Next week I am going to share 2 recipes where I use this  lovely broth so do watch for them.