ALL ABOUT: Broths
Granted, nothing compares with the flavor of homemade broth, but few of us ever have time to make it from scratch. Fortunately, we’ve found a few good stand-ins at the supermarket that will deliver richly flavored yet speedy soups, stews, and more. Below you’ll find the brands we prefer.
Chicken Broth
We frequently reach for chicken broth for the bulk of the liquid in our slow-cooker soups. While searching for the best-tasting commercial broth, we discovered a few critical characteristics that made a big difference in quality. First, look for a sodium content between 400 and 700 milligrams per serving. When combined with other salty ingredients such as canned beans and tomatoes, soy sauce, and ham hocks, too-salty chicken broth can easily ruin a dish, but we found that broth with less than 400 milligrams tasted bland. Also, look for a mass-produced broth. We tasted several broths with rancid off-flavors caused by fat oxidation, and the worst offenders were those made by smaller companies. Last, look for a short ingredient list that includes vegetables like carrots, celery, and onions. Our pick? Swanson Chicken Broth, which tastes rich and meaty thanks to its relatively high percentage of meat-based protein.
Beef Broth
In the past we’ve found beef broth to be light on beefy flavor, but making beef broth from scratch is far from convenient. Wanting to find out if supermarket offerings had improved, we gathered 13 top-selling beef broths, stocks, and bases and rated them on beef flavor, aroma, saltiness, and overall appeal. The top eight brands (five were eliminated) were then tasted in gravy and French onion soup. Ultimately, our top two broths delivered on rich, beefy flavor—but using very different ingredients. The runner-up, College Inn, relies on beef, beef derivatives, and glutamate-rich additives (such as yeast extract and tomato paste) for flavor and other additives for body. The winning brand, Rachael Ray Stock-in-a-Box All-Natural Beef Flavored Stock (made by Colavita), has a shorter but less foreign ingredient list that starts with concentrated beef stock, which means this stock has more fresh, real meat than the other brands. Also, this broth contained no processed additives except for yeast extract, but it still tasted really beefy. Tasters praised it as “steak-y” and “rich” with “thick, gelatin-like body.”
Vegetable Broth
For vegetarian dishes and vegetable dishes that might be overwhelmed by the flavor of chicken broth, we turn to vegetable broth. We sometimes use a mix of chicken and vegetable broths as vegetable broth can be too sweet when used alone. In our search for the best vegetable broth, we tested 10 brands and found that our favorite brands listed vegetable content first on the ingredients list and included a hefty amount of salt. Our winner? Swanson Vegetarian Vegetable Broth.
Clam Juice
When we need bold clam flavor for a seafood chowder or stew in our slow cooker, we reach for some clam juice, made by briefly steaming fresh clams in salted water and filtering the resulting broth before bottling. We tested three brands; one tasted “too strong” and “too clammy,” possibly because its sodium content was more than double that of the other two. Our winner, Bar Harbor Clam Juice, hails from clam country in Maine and brings a “bright” and “mineral-y” flavor to seafood dishes.
