The River Cottage’s Vegetable Bouillon (a.k.a. Souper Mix) Recipe on Food52 (2024)

I like the idea of this soup base, but found it too salty, even when diluted to make broth or soup.
Does anyone know how much the salt can be reduced vs the original measure while still being safe to store in the fridge?

Asma February 17, 2018

It would be great if you could list your ingredients by their metric weight too. Thanks

We love this recipe and we're making it for the third time today. The last batch lasted us almost a year, and we're vegetarians and cook from scratch 95% of the time. People complain about the salt, but remember, it's for preservation. And 3/4 cup salt for two people over a year of home cooked meals doesn't sound too horrendous to me. If you can't have salt for health reasons, I would make a small batch with little or no salt and freeze it and use it within a short time.

I’m curious to know if anyone’s has tried roasting the vegetables first? Would that give it an extra dimension of flavor?

I make my own chicken bullion by cooking my chicken stock down to a syrup and then dehydrating it (sometimes; other times I just put the syrup in the fridge). I never add salt to my stock so that I can decide when I'm using it how much salt to use. My complaint about commercial bullion is that you can never use enough for a deep flavour without getting way too much salt. I like the idea of making my own vegetable bullion but the salt is way too much for me - I think I would pulse the vegies and then dehydrate them rather than making a paste - that way I could avoid the over use of salt.

Could I cook this? Meaning throw all the ingredients in a pot, cook until soft, and then puree and jar? Anything I should worry about?

Gauge January 10, 2017

I made this today and I'm terribly disappointed. Insipid, salty waste of time. Now trying to figure out how to make it tasty because the idea is soooo appealing!

How long will it last in fridge? I made it less than a month ago, but have just kept jar in the fridge? This is the most brilliant recipe ever! Making big batches on Christmas Eve for family gifts!

I made this with end of the year garden scraps and herbs and cut the salt down to 1/2 cup . . . just tried using it for the first time at ratio of 1/2 tsp to 1 cup water and it is almost incredibly salty. I would try using even less salt if I were to make it again.

I made this yesterday without the sun dried tomatoes and found it to be tasty in a cup of hot water. So glad I didn't waste my time and all those veggies. I like the idea of adding prunes for body. Thanks, this was easy and I will use it for much more than soup.

jacq October 28, 2016

Hi. I made this to the recipe but my mix was very wet and not paste-like at all. Anyone else have this problem?

I made this according to the measurements (weight of vegetables and volume for salt) as originally posted with the addition of 7 oz. parsnip. The final product at 1 tsp/1 cup water gave an insipid broth. Increasing the amount of vegetable paste to 1 tbs/1 cup water gave a more fragrant and tastier, but borderline unacceptably salty, broth. Maybe addition of dried mushroom powder would boost flavor profile at suggested use of 1 tsp paste/1 cup water. I won't find out, though; the time and effort too much for the end product.

I'm a huge fan of the River Cottage preserving book, but I remember this recipe being ridiculously salty - inedibly so. I was, at the time, hoping for a quick and easy soup base, the resulting mix was completely unusable.

Wonderful! Not a salty as I was worried about from the comments. Equal parts chicken broth to 1 teaspoon paste ton1 cup water. Simmered. OH My!

Read October 21, 2016

Anyone compare this to the America's Test Kitchen version? This much fennel sounds awful, and ATK uses about 1/5 as much salt (which means you can use that much more of the puree without it being ridiculously salty). They also talk about why the prefer celery root to celery and tomato paste to sun-dried tomatoes. https://www.americastestkitchen.com/recipes/8204-vegetable-broth-base (you have to register, but you don't have to pay for the current season).

Bouillon cubes, which this recipe mimics, are very salty. I always use half a cube in a cup of water rather than the full cube that the package suggests. In the same way, rather than use less salt in this recipe, I would just dilute in more water.
Ottolenghi recommends prunes as a way to give body to a vegetarian broth, so when I ran out of sundried tomatoes, I added prunes and it tasted good.

Could you substitute tomato paste for sundried tomatoes for the umami? I just always have paste on hand and don't love sundried, so the rest of the jar always goes bad when I use them in recipes...

I did the math assuming the recipe made only 3 8oz jars and used 3/4c of salt. The concentrated mixture is about 25% salt. It comes out to about 1/4 tsp salt per cup of prepared broth -- high if you're on a salt-restricted diet. The concentrated mixture is about 25% salt. One should be able to reduce that fairly easily. I think I'll try making it using dulse or kelp (sea vegetables) powder in place of most of the salt.