The most important facts at a glance:
- Homemade vegetable broth has the advantages of being more environmentally friendly and made from more natural ingredients and is therefore better for your health.
- A recipe for homemade vegetable broth paste is presented; it only takes 30 minutes to prepare and is characterized by its uncomplicated handling.
- A recipe for homemade vegetable stock is also presented, which takes 1 ½ hours to prepare and can be classified as not very demanding due to its uncomplicated handling.
Why make your own vegetable broth?
Homemade vegetable broth offers numerous advantages: In contrast to conventional vegetable broths from the supermarket, which often only consist of one percent real vegetables, the homemade version impresses with its authentic taste. The commercial broths tend to lose flavor due to the drying process of the vegetables, requiring them to be stretched with a variety of ingredients. The use of flavor enhancers such as sugar, glutamate, yeast extract and excessive salt in these broths is also extremely unhealthy.
In particular, the high salt content, which makes up almost half of conventional vegetable broth, can exceed the daily recommended salt requirement with a consumption of 150 milliliters when combined with other salty foods. By preparing your own vegetable broth from leftover vegetables, you can avoid these unnecessary and harmful ingredients, which has a positive effect on your own health.
In addition, homemade vegetable broth proves to be a more sustainable alternative as it causes less packaging waste, organic waste can be reused and old glasses can be recycled. The process of making your own is not complicated and pays off in many ways. The homemade vegetable broth is free of unnecessary additives, consists of a few natural ingredients and, last but not least, is beneficial for the body as it only contains around four calories per 100 milliliters. Therefore, it is definitely worth choosing this healthy and tasty route.
Basic recipe for homemade vegetable broth
Any vegetable that either needs to be used up or has leftover trimmings is suitable for a simple vegetable stock recipe. However, it is important to ensure that the vegetables you use do not contain too much water, as high moisture can cause the stock to spoil more quickly. In addition, a blender or a sieve and preserving jars are required. It is best to rinse the preserving jars with boiling water shortly beforehand and dry them on a clean tea towel.
Ingredients for homemade vegetable broth:
Making your own vegetable stock allows you to use a variety of vegetables, both freshly purchased and stored in the refrigerator for longer. In order to make processing even more sustainable, vegetable trimmings that would normally end up in organic waste are also suitable. For example, onion peels, carrot ends and broccoli stalks can be used to make a tasty vegetable broth. The composition of the ingredients undoubtedly affects the final taste, and making a delicious vegetable stock from leftover vegetables without a set recipe requires experience. For those who want to be on the safe side or prefer a tried-and-tested recipe to start with, we present the basic ingredients for a homemade vegetable broth, which makes around 800ml.
- ½ head of celery
- 1 leek
- 2 carrots
- two onions
- two gloves of garlic
- Depending on your taste, parsley, chives, lovage and garden cress
- 5 level tablespoons of salt
Step by step instructions: Cook vegetable broth
The best-known form of vegetable broth is the instant powder, which you simply add to boiling water. To make your own vegetable stock powder, the thinly sliced vegetables must be dried in the oven for a long time. This process is anything but sustainable. We show more sustainable alternatives to how you can cook your own vegetable broth.
Recipe 1: The fastest vegetable broth paste
Vegetable paste is very similar in function to conventional vegetable stock powder. This aromatic seasoning paste can easily be made into a traditional vegetable broth. All it takes is two teaspoons of the paste, dissolved in a liter of boiling water. Here are the straightforward instructions for making the vegetable broth paste:
- Chop the vegetables and herbs into small pieces.
- Grind everything together with salt in a blender.
Recipe 2: The simplest vegetable broth
In this uncomplicated recipe we will show you how you can prepare an aromatic vegetable broth yourself in just a few simple steps. Once prepared, this homemade vegetable broth is ready to use immediately and requires no further mixing. Making the aromatic broth is simple and efficient. Here is the simple recipe:
- Cut the vegetables into small pieces and briefly roast them in a pot.
- Add the water, herbs and salt.
- Let everything simmer together for an hour.
- Pour through a sieve into a sterilized container.
Make your own vegetable broth: special taste variations
A vegetable broth without salt and sugar is particularly suitable for babies and small children. Less or no salt is used during preparation. Due to the vegetables' own taste, the broths are still tasty, but they do not last as long as salted broths and should therefore be consumed quickly. Homemade vegetable broth is also gluten and sugar free.
There are no limits when it comes to spices. You can try out all flavor variations. For example, flavorful mushrooms such as truffles or chanterelles, as well as chilli, ginger, turmeric or anise, are suitable.
Storage and shelf life of homemade vegetable broth
Due to its high salt content, vegetable broth can be stored in the refrigerator for a very long time, up to a year. To make it even more practical to use, you can put the paste or broth in small ice cube trays and store it in the freezer. If necessary, you have a pre-portioned stock cube straight away.
