Easy Homemade Vegetable Broth (Instant Pot or Stove Top)
Homemade vegetable broth beats anything from the store hands down, in terms of not only taste, but nutrition. For speed, use a pressure cooker. If you don’t have a pressure cooker, simmer this about 45 minutes to an hour then strain and cool. For the leeks and fennel, just use the top portion and save the white part and bottoms for your regular cooking. Make thrifty use of something you might normally discard.
large pot or Instant Pot or other electric pressure cooker
Ingredients
3quartsfiltered water
2largefresh tomatoeschopped into large chunks
1headgarliccut in half across the center
½poundfresh mushroomsrinsed and cut in quarters
4largecarrotsscrubbed clean and roughly chopped
2green tops from 2 leekssave the bottoms to cook with or use 1 whole leek
3celery ribsroughly chopped
1mediumonionroughly chopped
1bay leaf
½bunchfresh parsley
½bunchfresh thyme
1teaspoondried black peppercorns
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.
Notes
Cooling tip: If cooling to refrigerate or freeze, strain the broth through a fine sieve into a large bowl or a large clean pot. Place in a sink or larger bowl filled with cold water and ice. Stir to cool and release the heat. When you can stick your finger in it and it feels cool, refrigerate until totally cold. It should be 70°F or lower. If freezing, portion broth into containers and freeze, noting the quantity, date and name of the broth with masking tape and a sharpie.If you enjoy fennel I sometimes add a few stalks of one small bulb as a nice extra.