How to Make Vegetable Broth

Making vegetable broth isn’t such a hard thing to do: get bunch of roots and vegetables, stick them all in a pot and in about 1-1.5h you will get a vegetable broth to use for a soup or another dish which you know what it is made of (unlike a canned one).

Good thing about making vegetable broth yourself is that you can use vegetables left over from other dishes: stems from greens (parsley or dill), stem from white cabbage or stem and leaves from cauliflower, greens from leeks, etc – bits and pieces that you wouldn’t have any use for otherwise.

You can boil fresh vegetables just fine, however the method with roasting vegetables first produce more tasting and colorful broth. If you are looking to get more colorful broth keep inner clean brown layer of onion shell on, using more carrot will help too.

Ingredients:

  • 4-4.5qt of water
  • 4-5 carrots
  • 2 parsley roots
  • 1 parsnip
  • 1 onion
  • 1/2 of medium size celery root
  • 2-3 celery stalks
  • 1 leek
  • Greens to taste
  • 5 garlic cloves
  • 2 tablespoons of olive oil
  • 2-3 bay leaves
  • 10 black peppercorns
  • Thyme, fresh or dried
  • Ground black pepper to taste
  • Salt to taste

How to prepare, step-by-step:

  1. Prepare ingredients:
    How to Make Vegetable Broth Recipe: Step 1
  2. Warm up oven to 450F. Remove skin from celery root; peel top layer of onion skin, but leave the clean layers of it on; cut green portion of leek off and set it aside; wash other roots thoroughly; slice roots (onion, white potion of the leek, carrots, parsnip, parsley roots, celery) into rather large pieces, arrange them in a baking pan along with garlic cloves (skin on) and celery stalks:
    How to Make Vegetable Broth Recipe: Step 2
  3. Season with a bit of salt and ground black pepper and sprinkle with olive oil:
    How to Make Vegetable Broth Recipe: Step 3
  4. Put pan to the oven for 35-45 mins, stir from time to time to allow vegetables to cook evenly, then remove pan from the oven:
    How to Make Vegetable Broth Recipe: Step 4
  5. Transfer content of the pan to a pot:
    How to Make Vegetable Broth Recipe: Step 5
  6. Pour a bit of water to the pan where vegetables were roasting, scrape contents of it with a spatula and pour water to the pot with vegetables, add remaining water to the pot:
    How to Make Vegetable Broth Recipe: Step 6
  7. Add greens (I used green celery):
    How to Make Vegetable Broth Recipe: Step 7
  8. Wash green potion of leek thoroughly, slice it into pieces and add to the pot:
    How to Make Vegetable Broth Recipe: Step 8
  9. Add bay leaves, black peppercorns, season with a bit of salt (but not too much) and thyme, put pot on burner, bring to simmer and cook for 45-55 mins:
    How to Make Vegetable Broth Recipe: Step 9
  10. Arrange couple layers of cheesecloth over a colander settled over a pot:
    How to Make Vegetable Broth Recipe: Step 10
  11. Pour broth to the colander to strain clear broth (using lid will help you prevent unexpected splashes of hot broth:
    How to Make Vegetable Broth Recipe: Step 11
  12. Then broth is ready to use:
    How to Make Vegetable Broth Recipe
Enjoy!