It's really surprising how few recipes are out there for homemade bouillon. Stock, yes. Court bouillon, sure. But a concentrated bouillon paste that we can use to whip up a quick vegetable broth or add flavor to a pilaf? Not so much. In fact, we only found one recipe that fits what we're looking for.
Bouillon cubes and pastes can be a real help to those of us who either don't have tons of space in the freezer to store homemade stock or consistently manage to forget we ran out of it last week (I'll raise my hand for that one). We've talked about our love for Better than Bouillon, but it didn't occur to us until now that we could make it ourselves.
The only recipe we found is on Heidi Swanson's blog 101 Cookbooks and originally comes from the River Cottage Preserves Handbook:
• Homemade Vegetable Bouillon from 101 Cookbooks
This bouillon is basically a finely-ground paste of several different vegetables, garlic, herbs, and a healthy amount of salt. Heidi recommends using one teaspoon per cup of liquid in our recipes.
Have you ever made your own bouillon?
Related: Is It Cost-Effective to Make Pantry Staples Yourself?
(Images: Bouillon Cubes/Flickr member tsmall licensed under Creative Commons and Homemade Bouillon/with the permission of Heidi Swanson)
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Less the sun-dried tomatoes - I've been using and making this recipe for the last year. It's nothing short of amazing! Not only does it serve as a great base for any rice, couscous or soups - it is also remarkable on its own. When I'm coming down with a cold - a few teaspoons of this bouillon & three cups of water is the miracle cure!
This is great! Thanks for posting!
Wow, now THIS is a good idea. Thanks for bringing this to my attention. :)
I have made Heidi's recipe many times, and I LOVE it. It's amazing--makes gorgeous, colorful, delicious broth. I think the salt amount is quite high, though I tend to use less than most people. I cut the amount in approx. half, which gives me the best opportunity to add salt to taste when cooking with the broth, and also keeps it mushy enough to spoon easily even though I store it in the freezer. I have also left out the sundried tomatoes or substituted oven dried tomatoes when I have them.
I used to make my own bullion using Julia Child's method before I was vegan. I am so excited to try this veg version out!
I like to use homemade sofrito instead of vegetable bouillon cubes - it gives a great Latin flavor. This recipe from my Puerto Rican mother-in-law is a staple of Caribbean and South American cooking. I love cilantro, so this recipe may not be for everyone:
1 head garlic, peeled
3 small yellow onions, peeled and quartered
1 large bunch cilantro, leaves and stems
1 each red and green bell peppers
2 carrots, peeled
Pulse in food processor till it reaches a paste consistency. I freeze this in ice-cube trays till solid, then place in a freezer bag for long-term storage. Keeps indefinitely. 1 cube of sofrito = 1 bouillon cube.
In Asia, we grind and pre fry our onions, chillies, ginger and garlic together with spices and keep it in the fridge. It's a good idea, this.
Yup, I have the River Cottage Preserves book and it has many, many brilliant recipes, including this one.
It bums me out that this is referred to as "Heidi's" recipe so often and so cavalierly as I love the whole River Cottage series and HFW et al should get way more attention!