Zero Waste Vegetable Broth Guide
It is a whole 3 degrees here in Fort Collins tonight. Which makes this no better time than to share one of my favorite zero waste hacks for soup season. Which is this homemade veggie scrap vegetable broth guide.
Don’t throw away your precious vegetable scraps! It is beyond easy to turn them into delicious vegetable broth with no money spent. And trust me your homemade broth is going to taste a million times better too.
Now is the time for all of us to start re-thinking our waste and there are so many ways we can start to re-use, reduce, and save money with zero-waste lifestyle hacks. Our waste here in America accounts for 80 billion pounds each year. That is 1,000 empire state buildings. How are we letting this happen? It is way past the point of unacceptable. And all it comes down to when fixing our waste issue is just taking a few extra minutes to tweak a few habits. We all have to take responsibility and do something at this point.
Zero Waste Broth For The Win
When you make your own vegetable broth you are saving organic food matter from the landfill; as long as you compost the scraps after making the broth of course. In addition, you are eliminating the use of more of the plastic lined terra packs that most broths and stocks come in. These are extremely toxic to the environment because there is no way to recycle them and they do not decompose. So if you think about it every box of broth that everyone has ever used is clogging up landfills everywhere. This is such a catastrophic and unnecessary waste that can easily be avoided by making your own vegetable broth.
Making use of what you normally throw away ultimately costs you nothing too. Think about all of the money you will save by putting what you thought was trash to use. Pretty cool right? All you have to do is keep your food scraps in a large freezer bag in the freezer. When the bag is full then you can dump the contents in a crock pot in the morning before you are off to work. Fill the entire pot with water and cook on low all day.
Veggies That Add Pizzaz
Not every vegetable is going taste good in your broth so I will provide a list below with the most scrumptious options and the best avoided ones. There are lots of vegetables that are very versatile and add good flavor to anything you may be cooking. For an easy reference guide add this list to your refrigerator so when you are cooking in the kitchen you can quickly glance at it to remember what you can save and what you can toss in the compost.
Food Scrap To Add to Your Vegetable Broth
Celery cuttings
Carrot tops and greens
herb stems
lemons/limes
apple cores
mushrooms stems
pepper tops
fennel/leek
onion/garlic skins
Get Creative
When you try this for the first time I guarantee you will be hooked because it tastes so good. Every meal you make will taste like the best thing you ever ate. Even kick it up a notch and get creative with custom broths for certain dishes. Here are a few examples: Add shiitake and ginger to ramen broth. Savory herbs to classic winter soups like potato soup or split pea soup. Add hot peppers or dried peppers to your green chili broth. It is fun to get creative with it. And it is such a tasty way to start to work towards eliminating unnecessary waste.
If you liked this post your can read more of my zero waste and sustainable living blog posts here.
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