I Tested 6 Brands of Vegetable Broth to Find My Favorite

I tell all here + share a great recipe for split pea soup

If you use store-bought vegetable broth I have an important message for you: the brand you choose can make or break your dish. Different brands---even different labels within the same brand—vary so widely in flavor and color it’s startling. You can see what I mean with a glance at the various broths in the image above.

I had turned away from store bought vegetable broth, in general, years ago after cooking quinoa in some and finding the flavor so overpoweringly strong, I had to toss it out. That, and other bumpy experiences with it, led me to default to more predictable boxed chicken broth, even in otherwise vegetarian dishes (unless, of course, I was feeding someone who is vegetarian).

But recently I picked up a box of vegetable broth that changed my mind. It was savory and flavorful without being overbearing. I couldn’t believe how much I liked it! That discovery made me want to dig further. Were there other vegetable broths I’d like just as much? Were there others I’d dislike? To get some answers I went on a quest to sample as many different vegetable broths as I could find in my neighborhood grocery stores so I could compare and contrast them and report back to you. I tested 6 different vegetable broths, low-sodium versions where possible.  Even anticipating there would be wide variations between brands, the results surprised me. Read on to learn more, and find out which I liked best. (I’ve listed them here in alphabetical order.)

365 Organic Vegetable Broth

This Whole Foods house brand has a light amber hue and such a gentle hint of savory taste that it hardly has any flavor at all. My main impression was that it was thin and watery. I’m not convinced it would add much more flavor than water would.

College Inn Garden Vegetable Broth

This broth has a nice flavor, but stood out as being sweeter than the others, with a more carrot-y taste. Not surprisingly, the label revealed it has 3 g of sugars per serving whereas most of the others had 1 g or fewer. This broth would be best for soups and sauces where you might want to amplify the sweetness, such as squash or carrot soups.