A flavorful, aromatic broth can elevate a dish by giving every bite a rounded flavor, and it is so much more than just a light soup substitute. While broth isn’t quite the same as stock, with the latter being heartier, broth’s lighter notes are great for infusing gentle flavor into delicate-tasting dishes. Consider, say, a splash of broth in mashed potatoes. In fact, many dishes that are simmered in liquid or require the carb element to be boiled to tenderize (like rice, pasta, orzo, and risotto) can be elevated by using broth instead of water.
While meat and seafood broths pack a lot of depth and flavor, vegetable stock sometimes falls flat, even after one goes through the trouble of chopping, roasting, blending, and slow-cooking the veggies. Using tea as a vegetable broth alternative makes for a refreshing change. It may sound a little experimental, but once you start exploring the possibilities, it’s quite the culinary no-brainer, not to mention it’s much easier to make than a broth.
Tea is used in cooking a lot more than you may have known. If instant coffee and baking can go so well together, it’s not hard to imagine how useful fragrant tea leaves can be for infusing flavor and aroma into a dish. Similar to vegetable broth, tea flavors are complex yet mellow, adding delicious and often unexpected layers to mildly flavored dishes. Use green tea for earthy notes, black tea for deeper, more fragrant flavors, and rooibos for imparting a light sweetness. There are several ways of incorporating tea in place of vegetable broth, from boiling to poaching and even steaming.
Using tea as a vegetable broth alternative
One of the best ways to start experimenting with tea as a vegetable broth substitute is to use it to boost the flavor of cooked vegetables. There are ways to sauté veggies without oil, and while you can use water or broth to cook them, tea can be the best balance between flavor and convenience since it is so easy to brew. Green tea works especially well, bringing out the vegetal notes of fresh vegetables. Just add a few tablespoons of brewed tea into a skillet and cook the vegetables in it as you would in oil. Remember that too much tea will boil the vegetables and make them soggy, so use the liquid sparingly and add only a little at a time if needed. Once all the tea has evaporated, continue cooking the vegetables a little longer to firm up their outsides while the insides remain soft and flavorful. For a tea-inspired drinkable broth, serve these vegetables in green tea flavored with aromatics.
Because of tea’s mild flavor, you can bolster it with herbs and a few drops of flavor powerhouses like soy sauce or sesame oil. Do this when using tea as a poaching liquid to quickly infuse flavor into whatever you are poaching. Try using jasmine or green tea to poach fish. Fragrant Earl Grey tea can also be used to cook salmon.
Steaming works particularly well with tea because of the powerful aroma that it has. Dumplings steamed with a herbal tea will get a subtle flavor on their otherwise flavorless covering. Remember, brewing loose-leaf tea instead of tea bags lets you control the flavor and intensity better so consider using the former here.
