Easy 1-Pot Vegetable Broth

Vegetable broth is a kitchen staple in our house, and one that can be so expensive at the grocery store! For something that is so simple to make and and can literally can use kitchen scraps, it’s a wonder the broth companies have a market at all! This easy 1-pot  vegetable broth is the perfect budget-minded homemade item that can be used in so many ways to add flavour and body to your dishes. You can make it in big batches and keep a few containers in the fridge for the week and freeze the rest for future. Even better, if you are the lucky owner of an instant-pot you can whip this up in no time for the perfect veggie broth at your fingertips!

Being a primarily oil-free houshold, we use vegetable broth for sauteeing in and we use it to give body to dishes that would otherwise need a fat or oil for the same effect. We were partial to a very specific brand of oil-free vegetable broth that checked all the boxes. The trouble is its $5.00 a carton! Now, don’t get me wrong we willingly paid that for a long time because their broth is delicious, hearty, flavourful, not too salty, and doesn’t contain added sugar or oils. This is is almost impossible to find in other pre-made broths available in Canada. We do however go through at least 1 carton a week, usually 2 or more when we make soups and pastas. As you can see this gets expensive quick. So, I set forth to make my own.

This homemade 1-pot vegetable broth checks all the broth boxes:

• Flavourful – not watery with a hint of veggie flavour, this broth packs a veggie punch without the help of bouillon
• No added oil
• No added sugar
• No added salt
• Simple to make

The key to this broth is dried porccini mushrooms. You don’t have to include them if you can’t find them, but for a fairly inexpensive upfront cost, they add the perfect depth and umami to this broth. Fair warning, don’t judge them by their smell! They don’t smell nice (uhm, at all) but I promise they taste good! You could likely sub-miso to achieve a similar outcome but I haven’t tried it yet. I’ll be sure to update this post once I’ve given it a go!

Now, lets make some broth!

• Servings: Makes 12 cups
• Time: Instant-Pot 30 minutes; Stovetop 1 hour
• Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients

• 1 Medium Onion, roughly chopped
• 2 small or 1 large Garlic clove, roughly chopped
• 1 medium leek, greens & whites roughly chopped
• 2 stalks celery, roughly chopped into large pieces
• 2 carrots, roughly chopped into large pieces
• 1 tsp dry time (1 sprig fresh)
• 2 bay leaves
• 3 pieces dry porccini mushrooms
• 1 tsp tomato paste
• 4 peppercorns
• 12 cups Water

Method

1. In a large soup pot, or the pot of your instant-pot sautee the roughly chopped onion and garlic in water to soften, about 1 – 2 minutes
2. Add leek, celery, carrots, porccini mushrooms, thyme, bay leaves, tomato paste and peppercorns
3. Mix together
4. Add 12 cups water
   • If cooking on stove top, cover and bring to a boil. Reduce head to simmer and cook for 1 hour.
   • If using an Instant-pot, put the lid on, turn the vent to “seal”, put on manual for 25 minutes. When done cooking you can release the pressure manually or leave to release naturally.
5. Once the cooking time has elapsed, strain the broth, divide into containers, cool and store in the fridge for up to 5 days or freeze for up to 3 months.

 

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