Chicken (Or Veggie!) Broth So Easy You'll Never Buy Canned Again

I really mean it with the title of this post. Making chicken or veggie broth is so easy that I'm ashamed I've every used canned broth or those little bouillon cubes. Seriously, if you can boil water and chop some veggies, you can make broth.

Basically, all you have to do is throw a bunch of vegetables and leftover bones into a pot, fill it with water and simmer over heat for an hour. Yup, that's it. After everything has simmered, strain out the solids and you have broth.

And when I say throw a bunch of veggies in, I mean any ol' random veggies. In the pot that's shown above, there are the green tops of two leeks, a handful of radishes, some past their prime mushrooms, a green pepper and a yellow pepper, along with the bones from a roasted chicken. Making broth is a good way to make use of older vegetables or, as with the leeks, the parts of vegetables that you don't eat. It's also a way to get a little more use out of a chicken, pot roast and other bones.

To keep broth on hand for quick use, freeze it in one- or two-cup servings.

Image: Jason Loper