Greening Austin Daily

Make Your Own Broth to be Green

23rd January, 2012 - Posted by katherine - No Comments

I know Carsi posted before about making her own veggie broth, but it’s been more than a year since she wrote that post, plus I tried it for the first time this month, and ventured into making chicken broth as well, so I thought it’s good timing for a review.

First of all, why would you want to make your own broth?

1) It’s green because by not buying broth in a container at the store, you’re not wasting all that packaging

2) It’s also green because you’re using resources (vegetable scrapes or a chicken carcass)  that otherwise would go straight to the trash or compost bin

3) It has no preservatives

4) It tastes really good

5) It makes the whole house smell nice

6) Chicken broth and veggie broth at the store are pretty expensive, and even more expensive if you want organic. Last time I checked, a container of organic veggie broth cost about $3.

Using Carsi’s tips here, I made one batch of veggie broth a few weeks ago.  It’s so easy to save up the scraps to make this – I just store a gallon Ziploc freezer bag in my freezer, and pull it out every time I know I will be cutting up veggies.  Any onion ends, onion peels, carrot ends, thick stems of greens, garlic peels, etc. go into the bag after being cut into no larger than 5 inch pieces.  The bag then goes back into the freezer to wait for more scraps, and once I have a full bag worth, I have enough to make broth.  I’ve simplified the process a little by just dumping the whole bag of frozen veggies  in a large pot, covering with water, bringing to a boil, and then lowering to a simmer for about 40 minutes.  Once it’s strained and cooled I put it into small reusable containers and store in the freezer till I need them.

Inspired by the success of the veggie broth, I made chicken broth as well.  Earlier in the week I had purchased a whole chicken, and after it was cooked and I had gotten most of the meat off, I saved the whole carcass, including any skin and the wings, in a Ziplock bag in the freezer until I had time to make my broth.  When the time came, I followed these instructions, using the first method and adding a handful of frozen veggie scraps from the freezer. I covered everything with water, brought to a boil, and the reduced the heat to simmer for about 4 hours.  It was really easy and really flavorful.

remains after making broth, ready for the compost bin