Having homemade, delicious broth at the ready is an ongoing project. I make a batch every few weeks, freeze it, and then enjoy in soups, or as savory cooking liquid in rice, gravy, casseroles and all those other ways to warm you up.
To prepare, take a large freezer bag or Tupperware, and start saving your (washed) kitchen scraps.
I keep a bag in the freezer for this, and when it gets too full for any more, they get boiled into a deep broth.
What works:
- Mushrooms, mushroom stems
- Herbs, like parsley stems
- Celery
- Carrots
- Onions, onion skins, leeks, shallots, green onion etc.
- Garlic skins, ginger peels
- Tomatoes
What to avoid:
- Anything bitter: Cabbage, green peppers, brussel sprouts, broccoli.
- Anything too starchy: Potatoes, turnips.. looking at you
- Anything dirty: Make sure it’s washed, no mold, no dirt
Ingredients
- 1 full freezer bag of kitchen scraps
- Additional herbs and spices
- 8 Cups of water
- Salt
Directions
Dump all of your frozen scraps into a large stock pot and cover with at about 8 cups of water.
Add additional herbs and seasoning or fresh vegetables. If I don’t have any carrots or celery in the freezer bag then I’ll sometimes chop a few into large pieces and add them to the pot.
Variation 1: To prepare for ramen or pho and add
- Add a handful of fresh mushrooms, or a quarter cup of dried mushrooms if there are none in the frozen bag already
- 2 inches of ginger, cut into large slices
- 2 pods star anise
- 4 whole cloves (not cloves of garlic)
- 1 Tbsp whole black peppercorns
- 4 cloves garlic, gently crushed
- Half a cinnamon stick (take this out after 20 minutes)
Variation 2: To prepare for savoury dishes, Italian soups or stuffing, add
- 4 cloves of garlic, crushed
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 Tbsp whole black peppercorns
- Thyme, a fresh sprig or some dry
- Tomato paste or one medium tomato, sliced
- 2 tsp mustard seeds
Bring everything to a boil, then simmer for at least 30 minutes, until the water turns a deep orange.
To drain, remove all the vegetables from the broth with a slotted spoon. Taste your broth and season lightly, you’ll add more salt, miso, soy etc. depending on the final recipe you use it in, so go easy on it here.
Then let it cool for 20 minutes or so, and pour into a large bowl or into jars through a fine mesh sieve. Adding a lining of a cheesecloth or a kitchen towel helps catch the extra small pieces of vegetable that are floating around, and makes for a clearer broth.
I’ll keep this in the fridge for up to a week if I plan on using it right away. You can also Measure and freeze.
As someone who never has enough containers, I pour the broth into a muffin tin, freeze, then pop them out and put the individual pucks into another large container. Then you can easily portion out what you need to defrost.
Measuring Up 