Raise your hand if you’ve ever gotten so excited by the arrival of spring that you filled your crisper drawer (or entire shelves of your fridge, eh-hem!) with what I like to call “aspirational veggies”—seasonal market finds that, with their bright colors and heady aromas, beckon you as harbingers of brighter, warmer days. Also raise your hand if, after the thrill of those frisky encounters fades into the reality of your busy schedule, you have asked yourself, “Now what am I going to do with all this stuff?”
Cooking Tips
Embrace Spring Vegetables and Make a Delicious Broth with Their Scraps
Vegetable scraps are soup-er stars hiding in plain sight.
By Published Mar. 25, 2024.
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10 ingredients. 45 minutes. Quick, easy, and fresh weeknight recipes.
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Recipes to the Rescue
Great recipes (creative yet practical, surprising yet approachable) can provide inspiration and guidance to tame your bounty, of course, and we devoted the better part of our Spring Fling issue of Cook’s Country magazine (April/May 2024) to that very purpose. We’ve got you covered with fresh takes on recipes for Grilled Garlic Scapes, Fresh Leek and Spinach Dip, Cast-Iron Skillet–Roasted Potatoes, Fennel, and Asparagus, Grilled Carrots with Feta-Herb Sauce, Stir-Fried Pea Greens with Garlic, Fresh Basil Oil, Braised Whole Artichokes with White Wine, Fennel, and Orange, and more.
One Meal’s Loose Ends Are Another Meal’s Inspiration
Beyond recipes, however, is a kind of continuity—a relationship—among the ingredients you might have collected at a given time. It’s just a question of looking for those connections and having strategies for realizing their potential.
To take full advantage of spring’s abundance, Cook’s Country Editor in Chief Toni Tipton-Martin, in her Letter from the Editor for our Spring Fling issue, suggests shifting your mindset to a more flexible one as you aim to make the most of your veggie stock-pile (hint, hint!). She recalled author Tamar Adler’s beautiful book, An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace (2011), in which Adler recommends prepping veggies when you first bring them home—washing, trimming, peeling, chopping, and even cooking—while you’re still feeling excited about them. Then they’ll be ready for recipes and to jump-start spontaneous cooking when you’re short on time or feeling less inspired.
Into the Pot, Not onto the Pile
Adler also said, “Great meals rarely start at points that all look like beginnings. They usually pick up where something else leaves off.” With a small shift in thinking, and some basic organization, one meal’s loose ends can be the starting point of your next meal. The hidden potential of these “loose ends” becomes abundantly clear during recipe development in the test kitchen, as we cook our way through pounds of vegetables (and other ingredients). With so much vibrant plant matter piling up on our work stations, rather than toss it all onto the compost pile, we periodically collect, store, and transform those scraps into a delicious broth, perfect for adding layers of flavor to anything from risottos and pilafs to soups, vegetable purees, sauces, stews, or braises.
What follows is less a recipe, more a loose formula (similar to the formula I developed for Clean-Out-Your-Fridge Soup for ATK’s Cooking for One book). Let the unique flavors of your broth—and the flavors of fresh vegetables—inspire you!
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How to Make Vegetable Scrap Broth
Plan Ahead
Freeze vegetable scraps in a zipper-lock bag until you have a robust collection.
Use These
- Artichoke stems and loose leaves
- Asparagus ends
- Carrot peels and tops
- Celery trimmings
- Fennel stalks and fronds
- Garlic scape trimmings and tiny cloves of garlic
- Herb stems and sprigs
- Mushroom stems
- Onion, leek, and shallot skins and greens
- Pea green trimmings
- Potato peels
- Radish tops
Skip These
- Any scraps that are deeply discolored, overly softened, or beginning to mold
- Cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, and cabbage
Additions
You can build layers of complexity in this veg-forward broth by adding other ingredients, such as the following.
- Aromatic elements: bay leaves, citrus zest, ginger nubs, etc.
- Savory elements: Parmesan rind, kombu, soy sauce, fish sauce, anchovy paste, miso, tomato paste, etc. (You can include animal bones and meat trimmings if you wish, but their flavors can eclipse those of the vegetables and the milder aromatic and savory elements.)
Steps
Follow these simple steps to make about 8 cups of broth.
- Gather scraps from nearly any vegetable. (If scraps are not already washed, give them a thorough wash.)
- Combine 1½ to 2 pounds of vegetable scraps, 3 quarts of water, and 1 tablespoon of table salt in a large pot and bring everything to a boil. Partially cover the pot, reduce the heat to medium‑low, and simmer gently for about an hour.
- Strain the broth through a fine-mesh strainer into a large bowl or container; compost or discard the spent scraps. Let the broth cool completely (about 30 minutes), and then refrigerate it for up to four days or freeze it for up to two months.