We try to waste as little as possible, and we’ve gotten rather good at it. We used to always have produce that would go rotten in our fridge, but since we started meal planning every week we rarely have wasted food. This simple pantry hack recipe for Vegetable Broth made from veggie scraps is one of those best-kept secrets to making use of waste.
People often recommend making vegetable stock with vegetables that are no longer edible or on their way out in order to utilize them. With us rarely having rotten or almost rotten vegetables, we thought we would try using veggies scraps from day-to-day cooking. We keep a large freezer bag in our freezer (holds about 10-12 cups of scraps) and we throw our everyday produce scraps in there.
Produce scraps consist of anything from the vegetable that can’t be used. Our bags normally consists of: carrot peels, cucumber peels, bell pepper tops, radish ends that have been cut off, the stubs of lettuce, spinach that isn’t looking great, celery tops, broccoli stems, cauliflower stems and leaves, turnip peels and sprigs of herbs that we didn’t get to in time. You can really put any vegetable scrap in here to make sure you get the most out of all your produce!
With only two of us in each of our households, it only takes about 1 and-a-half to two weeks to get enough vegetable scraps to make this broth.
We use vegetable broth frequently as a substitute for oil when pan-frying vegetables, and we also use it as a substitute for water when making rice, quinoa or sauces. It adds a little bit of extra flavour, so why not!
Vegetable Broth
Ingredients
- 1 large bag Vegetable Scraps Frozen
- 1 large Onion Peeled & quartered
- 4 cloves Garlic Peeled & left whole
- 2 tbsp Salt
- 1 tsp Peppercorns
- 12 cups Water
Instructions
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Place vegetable scraps, onion, garlic, salt and peppercorns in a large soup pot and cover with 12 cups of water.
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Cover pot and bring to a boil.
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Reduce to a simmer and let simmer for 1 hour to 1 hour and 30 minutes. The longer you let simmer, the more flavourful the broth will become.
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Allow broth time to cool.
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Place a fine mesh colander over a large bowl and poor broth through the colander. In the bowl you will be left with vegetable broth and you can discard the vegetable scraps in the colander.
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Split between mason jars and keep in the fridge. If you don’t use vegetable broth frequently, place a jar in the freezer.
Recipe Notes
*Vegetable broth can keep in the fridge for up to 1 month or in the freezer for up to 6 months.
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