Easy homemade vegetable broth is far superior to the store stuff in cans and boxes. It takes just 7 minutes in an Instant Pot or pressure cooker and about 45 minutes on the stove top. Use it anywhere you use broth. It's great in soups and stews, risotto, and for cooking rice and quinoa. Make a batch and freeze it in portions.
Why Make Homemade Vegetable Broth
Because it's tastes better and it's healthy. At the store you’ll find vegetable broth in boxes, cans, cubes, pastes and powders. With chicken broth you can find decent tasting store brands to use in a pinch. Vegetable broths can taste metallic, musty, sour, salty, and not even like vegetables with poor quality ingredients.
Homemade tastes great and is guaranteed to be healthy. It's so easy in either an Instant Pot (pressure cooker) or on the stove top.
Read the Labels on Store Brands
Read labels on store brands of vegetable broth. They may contain high fructose corn syrup, partially hydrogenated oils, sugar, high sodium levels, dextrose, yeast extract, hydrolyzed soy protein, and flavor-enhancing food additives, MSG and mystery flavorings. Really?
One cooking magazine reported that “vegetable broths tend to be made from the ugly ducklings of the produce world—vegetables that, while not spoiled, are unsuitable for sale as whole vegetables or vegetable parts”. They also report some broths are not even made from fresh vegetables, but use powdered vegetable content. It might really be vegetable extracts, concentrates, or powders. No thanks.
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Homemade Vegetable Broth Ingredients
For a full flavored homemade vegetable broth, buy 2 fresh tomatoes, a head of garlic, half pound of brown or white mushrooms, carrots, celery, fresh thyme and Italian parsley, leeks and onion. For the leeks, use the top dark green part for the broth and save the light green part for cooking.
Cooking Methods: Instant Pot or Stove Top
If you go the traditional method of simmering on the stovetop, it will take about an 45 minutes. Not too bad – but there is a faster way. Use an Instant Pot or pressure cooker. For speedy vegetable broth, it takes just 7 minutes at high pressure. The broth is a rich golden color with pure vegetable flavor. Use vegetable broth immediately, or cool, refrigerate or freeze. Chilling directions are at the end of the recipe. You'll need black peppercorns too, but no salt.
Broth seasoning professional tip: Never add salt to broths when cooking; add them to the dish you when cooking.
📖 Recipe
Easy Homemade Vegetable Broth (Instant Pot or Stove Top)
Equipment
- large pot or Instant Pot or other electric pressure cooker
Ingredients
- 3 quarts filtered water
- 2 large fresh tomatoes chopped into large chunks
- 1 head garlic cut in half across the center
- ½ pound fresh mushrooms rinsed and cut in quarters
- 4 large carrots scrubbed clean and roughly chopped
- 2 green tops from 2 leeks save the bottoms to cook with or use 1 whole leek
- 3 celery ribs roughly chopped
- 1 medium onion roughly chopped
- 1 bay leaf
- ½ bunch fresh parsley
- ½ bunch fresh thyme
- 1 teaspoon dried black peppercorns
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Instructions
- In a 6-8 quart pressure cooker, add the water and all ingredients, tomatoes through fennel stalks (if using). Lock the pressure cooker lid on and bring to high pressure. When the pot gets to high pressure, turn heat down to low and time for 7 minutes. The pressure gauge should stay up. If not, increase the heat just a tiny bit and watch that the gauge stays up. This may vary by range or cooktop.
- After 7 minutes at high pressure, remove the pot from the heat and allow the pot to sit until the pressure drops naturally. If it has not dropped in 20 minutes, release any pressure naturally by placing the pot under cold running water until it releases. Remove the lid, being careful to position the lid away from your face, and open the pot. Use broth right away or cool to store or freeze.
Rebecca says
Hi Sally,
The last couple of times that I've made vegtable broth from scratch it has turned out to have a terrible metallic flavor (I did not use your recipe for these bad ones!)
Any ideas on what could be causing that? Too many onions perhaps?
Thanks for the article!
Sally Cameron says
H Rebecca. Hmm, that is strange. What kind of a pan are you using? Also, I'm wondering if it's too acidic and that is coming across as metallic to your taste buds. And since I don't know what's in the recipe you used, hard to say. Try my recipe and see if that happens, and please let me know.
Posicionamiento Web Madrid says
Estaba buscando esa informacion hace edad, te lo agradezco,
estoy de concierto con tu punto de vista y grano igual.
Despues de buscar mucho por Internet encontre lo que buscaba.
Genial!!! muchas gracias
Tonia says
I have a Elite electric presure cooker. I'm very new at cooking with it. Do you cook this the same was as a stove top presure cooker?
Sally says
Hi Tonia. Yes, absolutely, and easier as you don't have to baby-sit it. I've got to go electric.
Katherine says
I'm completely new to making my own vegetable stock, is there any way to make it similar to this but without a pressure cooker? Thank you!!! And,.... I do LOVE your blog!
Sally says
Hi Katherine. Thanks for the kind words! A pressure cooker just speeds things up. You can make it without one by just simmering the vegetables for an hour, or until the broth is a nice deep golden color. You may find that a pressure cooker is worth investing in. Really, I love mine and could not live without them. There are many great recipes you can make with one! They are not expensive, and you can use them without the pressure capability just like a regular pot.One more thing you can do to add flavor )just take more time) is to first roast your vegetables in the oven at 350 until browned and caramelized, then simmer to make broth. Please let me know what you do.
Debbie Burgess says
Sally, I made your vegetable broth tonight after roasting the vegetables at 375 for about an hour, just until they started to caramelize. I'll definitely be making this again. It is absolutely delicious! There are so many different flavors playing together, and the only thing I can think of to improve upon what I made would be to not forget the fennel the next time. 🙂 I'll be canning this in the morning and enjoying it for weeks to come. Thanks so much for sharing your recipe!
Sally says
Great to know Deb! I'll definitely try that next time. Thanks much for reporting back. And I agree, the fennel is really nice.
Lisa @ The Cooking Bride says
I just started cooking with a pressure cooker this past summer. I make a lot of my own chicken broth and I LOVE using my pressure cooker. It saves so much time and the broth has such a rich flavor.
Sally says
Agreed Lisa! Once you get a pressure cooker you're hooked! Then you might like a few other PC recipes I have. The French Market Soup, the chicken rice soup, the beef and carrot stew (if you eat beef), and have you tried cheesecake yet? Nice for a splurge and so fast! Recipe under dessert category. Enjoy your pressure cooker!
Jessica says
Love your photos and recipe for a healthy broth. Thanks for sharing!
Lindsay @ Pinch of Yum says
Wow - those photos are amazing. I need to try this - I use vegetable broth in tons of dishes!
Erin @ The Speckled Palate says
This broth looks and sounds fabulous, and I'm going to have to add it to my broth rotation, as I need to brew up some veggie broth in the near future. I've never worked with a pressure cooker before, and I don't currently have one... but now, I'm intrigued. Might see if I can find one I can test this out on!
Thanks for sharing this recipe!
Sally says
Erin, you can use a pressure cooker for lots of great things! You can even make cheesecake and desserts in them. Awesome cheesecake (for a splurge). There's a post under desserts. I could never do without my pressure cookers! Once you get one and start playing with them, I'll bet you will feel the same.
Debra says
On step 2. did you mean low pressure or high pressure?
Sally says
I do it all on high pressure Deb. Please let me know how it comes out for you.
Debbie Burgess says
Sally, this is such a timely post because I've been contemplating making vegetable broth to add to my supply of home made poultry stock (chicken, turkey and pheasant). Have you ever roasted your veggies to the caramelized stage before proceeding with this recipe? I'm wondering if that would increase the flavor and create a darker product, more like stock than broth. I hadn't thought to do this in the pc, but what a time saver that will be! By the way, I can all my broth/stock and that is such a convenient way to store and use it.
Sally says
Hi Deb. I've thought about roasting the vegetables to see if it increases the flavor but have not yet tried it. Using the pressure cooker seems to yield a pretty richly colored broth considering its all vegetables. The only thing with veg broth is that because there are no bones, you don't get the nice gelatinous body that you get from a bone broth. You can yours? That's great. I just freeze mine. Although sometimes I wish I had a bigger freezer!If you roast your vegetables please let me know how it comes out. I'll try that next time too, but it does add time.
Dawn says
how do you can your broth?
Sally says
Hi Dawn, I don't can mine, I just freeze it. Easier, as I use it often. Freeze it in whatever quantities work for you. You can use a muffin tin, then pop the cubes out when they are frozen and put them in a zip bag for small portions. Or freeze them in larger containers. I often use 2-3 cup portions in the OXO BPA-free containers. Some people freeze broth in quart zip bags and lay them flat. My issue with that is sometimes they get a nick in them and can leak when defrosting, unless you place the bag in a bowl or on a rimmed try for safety.
Mary@SiftingFocus says
I have always wanted to make homemade vegetable broth. Thanks for the inspiration Sally. Also, thank you for the recommendation on pressure cookers. I've never owned one but have always wanted one. I might just have to treat myself!
Sally says
Mary, a pressure cooker is a must have if you like to cook! Nice for soups, stews, broths, and many dishes. The 8 quart is really a good size to start with. I have a 10 qt and a small 4 qt but use the 8 qt the most. Plus you can use it like a regular pot without the lid. Amazon has a good price and the link in the post goes there. On cookbooks, Jill Nussinow and Lorna Sass are two big authors on pressure cooking. You can download Jill's book electronically. And check out http://www.hippressurecooking.com. Lauras entire blog is about pressure cooking.
Madonna says
I love homemade broth. Even without a pressure cooker one hour investment is well worth it. I am trying to multitask with a pot simmering on the stove while I fix lunch.