BY CATHERINE RICKMAN
The Simplest Plant-Based Broth For Flavorful Vegan Cooking
Homemade vegetable stock can add a flavor boost to many dishes, and you can quickly make a broth with just two ingredients and a bit of time.
To make an easy vegan broth, all you need is dried shiitake mushrooms and kombu seaweed. Together they make a Japanese broth called dashi, which has a rich umami and briny flavor.
Moreover, dashi ingredients have a long shelf life, don’t occupy much pantry space, are cost-effective, and require little prep work compared to traditional broth ingredients.
To make a dashi broth, cut a 2-inch piece of kombu and simmer it in 2 quarts of water for about 20 minutes. Avoid letting the water boil as it can make the seaweed bitter.
Once the seaweed has expanded and turned slippery, remove it, and add a few shiitake mushrooms. Let simmer for about half an hour until they’re meaty and then remove them.
Alternatively, you can make dashi by soaking your seaweed and mushrooms in a container of water overnight for a no-cook, hands-off broth.
Add the broth into anything from minestrone to creamy broccoli soup. Use it to cook pasta for an extra flavor boost, or bring out the dish’s Japanese flavors with Japanese curry.