Vegetable Broth

by Vanessa on August 20th, 2010

I begun making vegetable broth a few years ago. I don’t recall what prompted me to begin making my own but it is such a money saver for me, as I use a lot of broth in my cooking. I keep a large ziplock bag in the freezer and every time I have some veggie scraps I put them in it or if I have some veggies that are getting limp and I don’t have time to cook them I toss them in the bag. Everything from onion peels, carrot tops, potato peals, even the cabbage cores.

Once I notice that the bag is filling up I toss it all in to the crock pot. I usually run out to the garden and grab some herbs and rummage through the fridge and make sure I don’t have any veggies about to go bad, and then I throw in a couple garlic cloves peel and all. I fill it up with water (it usually ends up about 1 part veggies to 4 parts water) I turn the crock pot on low and let it cook at least 6-8 hours but I usually forget about it and it cooks all day.

Once it’s done I add soy sauce to give it the saltiness that we are used to (sometimes I’ll leave this step out, a lot of dishes I prefer to season on their own.) I strain it out, toss out the veggies (although you could compost them) then I funnel it in to a couple glass apple juice jugs I saved. And there you have it vegetable broth!