Last week, while scrolling through Facebook, I found a video of Chef Michael Symon making Vegetable Paella. It sounded delicious, so I watched the entire video. I found it fascinating since I had never actually seen it made before! One of the ingredients in his vegetable paella was homemade vegetable broth. He explained how easy it was to make from vegetable scraps. I thought to myself…we go through so many vegetables in a week. If I saved even just some of our vegetable scraps, I could make my own vegetable broth. So I did!
This weekend, I went through our refrigerator and took out any vegetables on the verge of going bad. I had half of a container of white mushrooms, some celery, a few carrots, and a red bell pepper. I cleaned them, chopped them up, and then threw them into a pot with some water and seasoning. I turned the heat on and let the fire do its work! One hour later, I had a whole batch of homemade vegetable broth! I let it cool and then strained it into a container to store in the refrigerator. It has been so nice to have fresh vegetable broth on hand. I have already used it as the base for some quinoa!
Next time, I am going to try to make my own chicken broth with chicken bones.
Ingredients:
Water
Vegetable Scraps (mushrooms, bell peppers, celery, carrots, garlic, onions etc.)
Salt
Pepper
Garlic Powder
Bay Leaf (optional)
Directions:
- Combine vegetables, garlic powder, bay leaf, salt, and pepper in a pot. Then fill the pot with water until about 3/4 full.
- Heat the water to just under a boil under medium heat.
- Turn down the heat and simmer for one hour.
- Turn off the heat and allow the broth to cool.
- Once cooled completely, strain the broth into a Tupperware or plastic container for storage. Discard the vegetables (and bay leaf). Store in the refrigerator up to five (5) days or in the freezer up to one (1) month.
