How To Make Homemade Vegetable Broth

Husband-Tested Recipe from Alice's Kitchen

Makes about 6 cups of broth

Save money by making your own homemade vegetable using scraps from your weekly meals.  It’s quite easy to make, as you will see!

You will need:

• a clean bread bag or plastic bag for storing your scraps
• soup pot for making the broth
• slotted spoon
• Pyrex heat-proof measuring cup or bowl (8-cup)
• a fine sieve for straining the broth
• containers to store the broth once it’s made
• vegetable scraps**
• water
• a few other ingredients**

**Vegetable and Herb Scrap Ideas:

• celery ends (the root ends of the stalks and the leafy ends)
• onion peels and ends (The peels will make your broth a nice brown color.)
• garlic clove peels and ends (I also use the middle of the garlic head since the cloves in the middle are too small for me to bother mincing for recipes)
• leek root ends and green leaf parts
• carrot ends and tops and peels
• mushroom stems
• herb stems (rosemary, thyme, oregano, parsley are good choices)

**Other Ingredient Ideas:

• a few whole peppercorns
• a few dried mushrooms
• a bay leaf 

You don’t have to have ALL of the above to make a good broth.  (Potato or sweet potato scraps will cloud your broth, so I don’t recommend using those scraps. The ones I’ve listed above will really make a lovely broth.)

Here's my veggie scrap bag full of vegetable scraps ready to be used.

Directions:
As you cook during the week, add whatever vegetable/herb scraps to the scrap bag and keep in the crisper drawer of your fridge.  (You can also keep the bag in the freezer if you don’t cook often.)
When the bag is full of scraps, rinse the scraps clean of obvious dirt.  Add them to the soup pot.  Cover the scraps with water.  Add some or all of the “other ingredients.”  Bring the water to a boil.  Reduce to a simmer and simmer away for about an hour.  Remove the larger vegetable scraps with a slotted spoon and then pour the remaining broth through the fine sieve into a very large Pyrex heat-proof measuring cup that has a spout.  Discard the vegetable scraps into the compost.  When your beautiful broth is cool enough, transfer it into storage containers and store in the fridge or freezer. (Or you can use it right away.)