Homemade Vegetable Broth Using Scraps

Are you making full use of all the food in your kitchen? You know, all those vegetable scraps that you toss into your garbage can? The onion peels, the stems from broccoli, the garlic that's starting to regrow. Don't throw them out, instead, store them in your freezer to make vegetable broth!

I was buying and storing so much vegetable broth because I like to use it to add flavor in lots of my recipes. To give rice and quinoa some extra flavor, to thin out soup. I was using tons of it, and spending money and throwing out perfectly good vegetables. How counter productive is that? 

I came across some recipes online showing how you can use your vegetable scraps to make your own broth. I was mad that I hadn't thought of this sooner! I hated the idea of throwing out food only to turn into green house emission in a landfill, not to mention the amount of money it costs in the long run. 

In America, we throw away billions of pounds of food per year. That is a whole lot of food! 

In the United States, food waste is estimated at between 30-40 percent of the food supply. This estimate, based on estimates from USDA’s Economic Research Service of 31 percent food loss at the retail and consumer levels, corresponded to approximately 133 billion pounds and $161 billion worth of food in 2010. USDA Food Waste Challenge

I can't tell you how many times I've gone into people's homes and watched them throw out food that was past the expiration date, but still perfectly edible. A friend of mine gave me a giant bag of baby carrots that expired a week prior. I put them in my smoothies and pickled the rest.

yellowing kale, stems, onion skins: I used to throw all of these away!

Now, what I like to do is keep a plastic container in my freezer. I take it out when I'm cutting up my vegetables and instead of tossing those veggies into the garbage, I throw them in the container. I like to especially add onions and garlic to the pile. 

I wait until it gets full and then I make my vegetable broth with it. Nothing gets wasted. (After straining the vegetables, I toss into my compost bin.)

all the frozen veggies just waiting to be made into my broth

Honestly, this is so dang easy, I don't know if I can call it a recipe. I mean, I don't do anything fancy like other bloggers. I don't roast anything first or add extra stuff. Nope, I just put it all in a big ole pot and let it simmer for an hour or two. 

that's everything all tossed into my pot and filtered water

I've seen some recipes that has added salt and herbs. I might try that next go round. But this is basically all that I do. 

I take all the scraps, place it in a pot, add enough filtered water to immerse the vegetables completely and then simmer until the vegetables are all soft. I strain into a big mixing bowl and then separate into glass mason jars that are safe for the freezer. 

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all the vegetables after they have simmered down into mush

That is basically it. You can add roasted garlic or sautéed onions if you want. You can even add salt, thyme, rosemary. If you're feeling adventurous, mix in some harissa paste or smoked paprika. Me, I just make a regular broth and add all the bells and whistles when I'm making my actual dish. 

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What do you think? Is this something you might start doing? Do you already make your own broth? Let us know your recipe in the comments.