VEGETABLE BROTH made with carrot tops! This easy homemade recipe uses carrot greens to make a healthy vegetarian broth! Carrot leaves provide amazing health benefits so they’re great to cook with!
Ok, so you just picked your beautiful garden carrots! They are gorgeous! You grab the scissors and chop off the leafy carrot tops. And then it hits you – are you seriously just going to compost the carrot greens?
No way!
With gardening, you put so much love and energy into every single plant. Every single carrot has been nurtured. Every single carrot has been planted, one seed at a time. So with me, it breaks my heart to try not to use every bit and piece of that vegetable!
What to do with carrot tops?
That’s how this recipe started for me. I was cutting off my carrot leaves and it hit me that I had to find a useful way to use them in the kitchen. And no, I don’t mean some weird stir fry that tastes bitter. I mean, a seriously good recipe that will become used every garden season in your kitchen. So here it is….
Carrot Tops Vegetable Broth! Print this recipe out and add it to your recipe box!
Can you eat carrot greens?
Yes, carrot leaves are completely edible. Not only are they edible, but some European markets actually sell them! Carrot tops can be bitter in taste, so that’s where the confusion comes from. But long story short, you can eat them!
Ingredients for Carrot Tops Vegetable Broth
This soup broth recipe is so easy, I can almost 100% guarantee that you have all the ingredients!
First up, you’ll need carrot tops. Any amount of carrot tops can work, and I will help you with the math to show you how much broth you can make with it (see that below).
Besides carrot tops, you’ll need water, salt and bay leaves. See, I told you you had all the ingredients!
The first step is cleaning your carrot tops. Most likely your leaves have dirt all over them, and we really don’t want to cook that in our broth. You can clean it in the sink, but I like to easily clean my greens in my salad spinner. The salad spinner is great (it’s my must have Summer tool!) and cleans all our vegetables so quickly!
Carrot Greens Vegetable Broth Recipe
Add the carrot tops to a large pot along with water, salt and bay leaves.
This recipe is 1:1, that means 1 cup of water to 1 ounce carrot tops. So if you have 8 ounces carrot tops, add 8 cups of water. If you have 2 ounces carrot tops, add 2 cups of water. Get it?
Bring the water and carrot tops to a boil and then cover with a lid and let simmer for 1 hour.
After an hour, you’ll see how much they have broken down.
And do you see that beautiful broth underneath? Yup, that’s delicious vegetable broth waiting for you!
The amount of vegetable broth this makes depends on how many cups of water you start with. In general, during the simmering process you will lose 1/2 – 1 cup of water. So for example, for the 8 cups of water I used , this made 7 cups of vegetable broth.
Once the broth is made you can use immediately in a recipe, or save it for later on. If you’re saving it, I recommend freezing it in freezer bags. When you want to use it, just take it out of the freezer and defrost it.
Looking for more broth ideas? Make Vegetable Broth with Broccoli Leaves!
Recipes Using Vegetable Broth
Here’s some of my favorite recipes that can use Carrot Tops Vegetable Broth!
Stuffed Pepper Casserole (substitute the beef broth with this!)
Kielbasa and Cabbage (substitute the chicken broth with this!)
Carrot Peel Use Recipes
Want to go one additional step with the carrot love? If you have carrots that are freshly peeled, you can add the peels to your broth too!
I hope you all enjoy this Carrot Tops Vegetable Broth! Happy gardening and happy cooking!
Pin for later:
Carrot Tops Vegetable Broth
PrintIngredients
- 8 cups water
- 8 ounces carrot tops cleaned
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 bay leaves
Instructions
- Add water, carrot tops, salt and bay leaves to a large pot. Bring to a boil.
- Once boiling, cover with a lid and turn to low. Simmer for 1 hour.
- Pour the broth through a colander, catching the liquid broth in a bowl below. Discard (or compost) the carrot tops.
- You can use the vegetable broth immediately or freeze for later use. This broth is great in any recipe that calls for vegetable broth!
Corey says
Can you can the brothV
DKM says
Actually, a bit of “dirt” (think “immune-enhancing matter”) in one’s stock pot is probably not a bad thing, presuming one is using organic produce. Then again, slug stock may be nutritious, but…slug? Dirt, though, dirt is immunity-boosting 🙂
Sherrie I Balfanz says
You don’t mention how to can the broth for storing .but show it in a canning jar.
Jacques 7 says
I will try tomorrow to use my plentiful harvest ready carrot tops Your recipe sound so tempting
Barbara Karr says
I NEVER find carrot tops in the supermarket! They are cut off before reaching the store. Having recently started to make homemade broths this makes me a little miffed. I love summer and the farmers’ market so I can use the whole carrot! Hear that produce people?
Pamela says
That stinks Barbara! Sometimes the organic section has some carrots with the stops still on here. Perhaps you can find a farmers market around you that has the carrot tops?
Mandy says
I’m so happy I found this! I can’t keep a compost pile because my puppies can’t stay out of it, so I freeze and use all veggie scraps to make veggie stock and I’ve added carrot tops before, but never used only carrot tops. I pulled carrots today and had enough to double this recipe. I can’t wait to try it! Thanks!
Pamela says
Hey Mandy, I’m so happy to hear you’ll be able to put your carrot tops to good use! Enjoy the broth!
Peggy Guerin says
The broth idea is super! I usually use my carrot greens along with some other “sweeter” greens to make a lovely green, fresh pesto.
Pamela says
I love the idea of making a pesto Peggy – thanks for sharing!
dave says
Can you share how you make your pesto with this carrot top broth recipe? 🙂