Home made vegetable broth is an easy and rewarding way to add wonderful flavour to a healthy diet. Almost any combination of vegetables will do, simply add water, boil, reduce, strain and presto … your vegetarian creation is complete.

There are some culinary tricks however that I now consider almost essential in order for vegetable broth to meet my own personal expectations, but you can be the judge.

Broiling – Baking

While it is entirely sufficient to simply drop a few handfuls of raw vegetables into a boiling pot of water to achieve tasty results, I find that the overall flavour of a great home made broth is dramatically improved when those same veggies are roasted in the oven first at around 400 to 450 for 30 or 40 minutes. Some ingredients like celery are not good candidates for broiling since they tend to take on an unfavourable aftertaste when subjected to this kind of dry, high heat. Most all other ingredients however will unwittingly take on a marvelous caramelized and charismatic aroma that will make your final product unmistakably more enjoyable.

Flavour Pack – Bouquet Garni

If you’re feeling adventurous you can infuse your broth with an additional layer of flavour by using a bouquet garni filled with any variety of herbs and spices you can imagine to help bring your broth to the next level. Inspire yourself by using flavours traditional to the country of your choosing or mix and match for effect. Peppercorns and bay leaves are also great candidates for a bouquet garni since they are not desirable to have floating around in your final product but their unmistakable flavour are certainly welcome additions to any broth.

Cooking Time

Once your vegetables are in the pot, simply add water until it rises almost to the brim and bring to a boil. Then it’s all about reducing the liquid for long enough to impart that delectable home made broth flavour, but not too long as to make a batch so small that it simply isn’t worth the effort. Tasting frequently is the only way to be sure. there is a subtle moment during the reduction process where the broth magically switches from tasting watery to tasting just right. Waiting too long beyond this point will certainly make for very flavourful broth but the amount remaining will prevent your hard work from being even mildly cost-efficient … and you want to end up with as much of this golden broth as possible when all is said and done, otherwise what would be the point.

Lastly, just a note on oil & salt … When roasting vegetables for my own home made broth, I always toss them in virgin olive oil with a moderate amount of kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper. This small quantity of oil and salt always provides an ample amount of flavour to my final brew and generates a perfect amount of that lovely oil-drop mosaic that makes a broth complete. Making vegetable broth from scratch is a perfect opportunity to avoid adding too much salt which is one of the main reasons to try home made in the first place as commercial brands are notorious for adding too much entirely.

Once you’ve made your very first successful batch, an even moderately successful broth will make it hard to go back to anything else. Feel free to have a look at my own recipe for vegetable broth, but more importantly I look forward to hearing your ideas on how to make the ultimate home made veggie broth.