Homemade Vegetable Broth
Hello there!
I hope you had a good Thanksgiving. I was ecstatic and blessed to spend it with my 3 boys. It was the first time in a couple years that we were all together on Thanksgiving due to their sports schedule. This year the stars aligned, and travel destinations allowed for us all to come together. We traveled to the University of Notre Dame for a hockey tournament for George and his high school team.
While it was a great weekend, and I love to travel, I came home exhausted and fighting the onset of a cold. All the holiday fixings, eating out, enjoying a glass of wine (or two!) and being enclosed in an airplane (where it seemed like everyone was sneezing or coughing!) certainly put my immune system on high alert.
I’ve mentioned juicing in a previous post, “Boost Your Immune System,” to boost the immune system, but another remedy I can count on to infuse a lot of vitamins and minerals into my system quickly is broth. There’s a lot of hype about bone broth these days, however, I prefer simple homemade vegetable broth.
Vegetable broth contains a vast array of vitamins and minerals that our bodies need. It’s relatively inexpensive and easy to make. I will use the homemade vegetable broth to make soup or I will pour approximately 12-16 ounces in mason jars and heat one up each day and drink it, just like I would a cup of tea.
Between juicing and drinking vegetable broth my cold symptoms will be gone in just a few days. With all the activities I have planned over the next few weeks I need to be as healthy as possible.
If your prepping your vegetables, see “Meal Prep 101,” then you already have the fixings to make vegetable broth. You can use the vegetables that I suggest, see below for cooking method, or you can choose your own favorites, either way you’ll be left with some awesome broth that you can use immediately or store in the refrigerator for up to five days.
Storage tip: If I’m not making soup that week, I will fill up 12-16-ounce mason jars and freeze the broth. That way I can make myself a bowl of soup any time I want.
Here’s to a healthy and happy immune system!
Servings: 2 Quarts or 4 Pints (for freezing)
Ingredients:
1 Organic yellow onion
2-4 cloves of garlic
1 lb. Asparagus stems
2 Broccoli stems
1 Cauliflower core plus leaves
Trimmings from celery, include leafy parts
1-2 tsp. Salt
1 tsp. Black pepper
Optional:
Peppers, any color chopped
Carrots, include ends and leafy parts
Basil
Any other veggie trimmings you have!
Method:
Wash and prep vegetables, see “Meal Prep 101,”
Save trimmings, stems, peels, any part of the vegetable you would normally throw out.
Place all the trimmings in a large stock pot, add water to fill ¾ the pot.
Add salt and pepper and bring to a boil.
Boil until liquid is reduced by half, approximately 1 hour.
Fill with more water to bring the level back to ¾ the pot, bring to a boil, then reduce to simmer.
Simmer approximately 1 more hour.
When finished, turn off cook top, allow to cool for 30 minutes, then drain the vegetable trimmings using a mesh strainer to capture all the small pieces. Use immediately for soup or pour into a glass storage container.