Cooking from Scratch - Veggie Scrap Broth

​When you are cooking from scratch, naturally you’ll have vegetable scraps from prepping and chopping your veggies.

I have been trying to figure out a way to use up all these beautiful vegetables that I was having to throw away. We currently don’t have a yard and our HOA doesn’t allow composting, but then it hit me: vegetable broth! 

Because I don’t prep all of my vegetables at one time for the week, I typically do not have enough scraps at one time to make a batch of broth. We are very frugal with our grocery budget and I couldn’t justify using whole fresh veggies just for stock.
​The solution: use a gallon zip-loc bag and toss my vegetable scraps in throughout the week and store it in the freezer until full.

If you’ve never made vegetable broth before, don’t worry! It’s so easy that this can hardly be considered a recipe. More of a method really, but I just had to share. This broth adds so much flavor to soups, but we use it for other things as well. I like to add broth instead of water when I cook rice or other grains, make gravy, I use it to thin out my crock-pot refried beans, and seasoned black beans as well. 


Vegetable Broth (from Scraps!)
Ingredients:
1 gallons Zip-loc bag full of vegetable scraps
    Vegetables that I always add:
    - carrots, peels and tops
    - onions, tops and skins
    - celery, bottoms and leaves
12 Cups water
1-2 Tbsp Soy Sauce (optional. If GF you can replace with 1-2 tsp of salt to taste)
2 Tbsp Oil (I use canola or olive oil)

Tools:
Large Soup Pot or Stock Pot
Colander
Strainer (ideal, but not entirely necessary. Use what you have, a colander alone will be fine)
Jars or other containers for your finished stock - I like to reuse old glass pickle jars from the store

Process:

• Start by adding oil to your soup pot, heat on medium and add your frozen vegetables. 
• Cook for about 5 minutes until vegetables are soft and slightly browned.
• Add in 1 Tbsp of soy sauce (OR tsp of salt) and water. 
• Cover and increase heat to Medium-High, bring to a boil.
• Once boiling, reduce heat to a simmer and allow to cook for 1 hour. 
• At the 1 hour mark you can taste and adjust salt* 
• Allow to cool slightly making it easier to handle the large and heavy pot.
• Place colander, or strainer, over another large pot or heat resistant mixing bowl (I use a stainless steel mixing bowl placed on a cork trivet) and pour broth into colander.
• Let cool to around room temperature before pouring into your storage containers or jars.
• Allow to cool completely before sealing jars and placing in the refrigerator. 

Broth keeps in fridge for 3-5 days. 

*Keep in mind that you may be adding salt to the recipe that you’re cooking with the broth (soups, etc) so extra salt may not be necessary!  

Since I use this broth in a variety of recipes, I choose not to add any spices or additional seasonings (ok, maybe the occasional garlic clove) If you’d like, play around with some additional seasonings and make this recipe your own.

Do you make your own broth? How do you use up your food scraps? Let me know in the comments below! ​​