Easy tasty vegetable broth

Bowl of vegetable broth with the ingredients used to make it.

Have you every bought a vegetable broth only to have it taste like you were being hit in the mouth with a giant mushroom? I wanted to find a way to create a great tasting vegetable broth with a balance of flavor. I spent a day testing different ingredients and methods.

What I came up was is so tasty! After I made it I was having a tough time stopping me from just slurping it all down!

My original goal for this broth was to make something that could stand in for a beef broth. I really wanted to amp up the umami flavor without going over board on the mushroom flavor.

The first test that I did for my vegetable broth was to test different types of mushrooms. One type was a clear winner. I tested button mushrooms, baby portabella (aka cremini mushrooms), Portabella mushrooms and shirataki mushrooms.

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Both the portabella mushrooms and the sirataki mushrooms added very strong, all be it different, mushroom flavors. Those didn’t work. The button mushrooms flavoring was to mild, I might come back and look at them for a chicken broth substitute later. The baby portabella / cremini mushrooms were just right. A nice smooth flavor and smell without being over powering.

I still wasn’t getting the umami punch that I wanted for this broth. I’ve recently been practicing my gluten free Chinese cooking. One of the things that you need to do to to cook gluten free Chinese food is to make some of your own sauces.

One of the new to me ingredients that I have been using are dried fermented black beans. These provide a nice slightly sour / bitter umami flavor. To balance that out I also added a little bit of soy aminos which have a slightly sweet umami flavor.

To make it easy and speed up the process a little bit I decided to do this recipe inside of my instant pot. You can easily do it on the stove top just double the length of time that you let the broth simmer.

I am so happy with the results. This vegetable broth is a great soup base or it’s just great to have on it’s own as a consumé.

Easy tasty vegetable broth

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Recipe by Tim Martin Difficulty: Easy
Servings

6

servings
Prep time

10

minutes
Cooking time

20

minutes

This easy and tasty vegetable broth is so tasty! It makes a great replacement for beef broth in recipes. It’s also great as a soup base or a consumé!

Ingredients

  • 8oz / 1lb of baby portabella / cremini mushrooms

  • 1/2 red onion

  • 3/4 cup roughly cut carrots

  • 1/2 cup roughly chopped celery

  • 1/2 tsp. soy aminos

  • 1 tbsp. yang jiang salted black beans

  • 2-3 sprigs of thyme

  • 2 tbsp. olive oil

  • 6 cups water

  • 1/2 tbsp. salt (optional)

Directions

  • Prep the vegetables. Roughly chop the carrots and celery. Quarter the red onion and chop the mushrooms in half.
  • Set the instant pot to sauté. Add in the olive oil.
  • Fry the red onion for 1-2 min till they start to soften.
  • Add in carrots and celery fry for an additional 2 min.
  • Add mushrooms and fry for an additional 4-5 min.
  • Add water and sprigs of thyme and salted black beans. Cook on low pressure for 12 min.
  • Carefully slow or quick release the pot.
  • Being careful not to burn yourself, you may want to let the inner pot cool, remove the inter pot and strain out the vegetable pieces.
  • Add the soy aminos and salt if using. Stir and you are done!

Recipe Video

Notes

  • You can find the fermented salted black beans in asian markets or on amazon.

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