The Best Vegetable Broth

This homemade vegetable broth recipe turns out so hearty, rich, and savory that you can sip it on its own. It’s so much better than store-bought!

After trying our recipe for vegetable broth, you will never want to buy boxed broth again! It’s simple to make, takes much less time to make than chicken stock, and packs in so much flavor.

This soothing and delicious veggie broth is perfect for all of your recipes. It’s also so flavorful that you can sip it like tea or bone broth. It’s simple to make, and I’m confident you’ll love it.

Key Ingredients

• Onion, Carrots, and Celery: This classic trio forms the aromatic base of the vegetable stock.
• Tomatoes: They add both rich flavor and a beautiful color.
• Garlic and Dried Mushrooms: These develop even more flavor. I love dried shitakki mushrooms, which I find in my local grocery store in the same aisle as international ingredients like specialty soy sauces.
• Herbs: I go heavy on the herbs, using fresh parsley, thyme, and bay leaves.
• Vegetable Scraps: This is the perfect time to use up those scraps you’ve been saving in the freezer, like kale stems, leek tops, carrot peels, and mushroom stems.
• Salt and Filtered Water: I love sea salt for this, and make sure to use filtered water for the best flavor.

Find the full recipe with measurements below.

How to Make the Best Vegetable Broth

Tip 1: Roast your vegetables. For the most savory and satisfying broth, roast the onion, carrots, celery, tomatoes, and garlic until nicely browned. This simple step intensifies the stock’s flavor and adds color.

Tip 2: Don’t leave out the tomatoes. Tomatoes add sweetness, color, and umami to this broth. Tomatoes are naturally high in glutamate, which means they contribute to that “fifth taste” or umami. Simply put, umami makes things taste good, adding that super delicious quality. Using tomatoes makes it rich and crave-worthy.

Tip 3: Use dried mushrooms. Even though we didn’t add any bones or meat to this recipe, we still wanted some “meatiness” in the stock. Mushrooms are the solution. Just one ounce of dried mushrooms transforms this veggie broth from merely okay to something you wonder if it’s even vegetarian.

Tip 3: Use it in your favorite recipes. This is perfect anytime a recipe asks for broth (even if it’s asking for chicken broth or beef broth). I often use it to make the soup recipes on Inspired Taste, like this potato soup, French onion soup, butternut squash soup, lemon turmeric lentil soup, and this veggie tortellini soup. It’s also great for cooking rice or quinoa. Use it in my quinoa recipe or to make this cilantro lime rice.

Tip 4: Sip it like tea. This veggie broth has so much flavor, it’s lovely in a mug and sipped like tea. Any time I’m under the weather, I crave this broth. It’s so comforting. I highly recommend making a double batch of our broth and freezing some for a rainy day! It’s magic.