Name: Vegetarian "Beef" Broth
Total time: 1 h 30 min
Ingredients: 1 pound button mushrooms , sliced thin; 1 onion , sliced thin; 2 celery ribs , chopped; 1 carrot , chopped; 2 tablespoons vegetable oil; 1 tablespoon tomato paste; 3 garlic cloves , unpeeled; 8 cups water; 2 1/2 teaspoons salt

Why This Recipe Works

While you could certainly use vegetable broth as a substitute for beef broth when converting a recipe to vegetarian, it’s not always the best option. That’s because vegetable broth is meant to highlight the light, sweet flavor of vegetables, while beef broth should be rich, meaty, and savory. (Our favorite store-bought beef broth, Better Than Bouillon Beef Base, hits these points.) We set out to create a meat-free substitute that would match the flavors of beef broth using ingredients high in glutamates—the chemical compounds that create savory flavor. We tried broths with soy sauce, tomato paste, miso, Vegemite, Marmite, mushrooms, onions, and liquid smoke. After more than a week of testing, we had a recipe made in a roasting pan that mimics the rich, deep flavors of good beef broth. It requires more than an hour of oven time, so it’s not as fast as opening a carton of vegetable broth, but the flavor payoff is worth it. Try this broth in your favorite recipe for French onion soup or vegetable chili.

Instructions

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 450 degrees. Combine mushrooms, onion, celery, carrot, oil, tomato paste, and garlic in large roasting pan.

Roast until vegetables are tender and very dark in color, 35 to 40 minutes. Add water to pan. Continue to roast until water is reduced by half, about 30 minutes. Strain through fine-mesh strainer and discard solids. Stir in salt and let cool completely. Broth can be refrigerated for 3 days or frozen for up to 1 month.