Looking for an easy way to add rich, savory flavor to your homemade dehydrated camping meals? Try making your own homemade vegetable bouillon powder. This is a simple blend of nutritional yeast, salt, garlic powder, onion powder, thyme, parsley, celery seed, and turmeric. It’s a low-sodium, shelf-stable seasoning that adds more flavor to dehydrated meals while in the field or at the campsite. Just a tablespoon or so is all you need.
How to Make Your Own Vegetable Bouillon Powder
We’re all about convenience out in the field or at the campsite. To this end, we do the hard work at home before heading out into the field.
Making your own vegetable bouillon is simple enough. All you need is a handful of easy-to-source ingredients. Some of these are things you can make yourself using your food dehydrator.
Most store-bought bouillon is a highly processed, convenience food. Just take a look at the ingredients, salt, sugar, and ingredients that come from your grade school chemistry set, followed by stuff you might recognize as foods you might actually use when making a broth or stock.
Supplies Needed to Make Vegetable Bouillon Powder
- Common kitchen tools, including cutting boards, spice grinder, measuring tools, etc.
- Wide-mouth canning jar funnel
- A canning jar with a tight-fitting lid
- Desiccant packets for moisture control (optional)
Ingredients to Make Vegetable Bouillon Powder
- 1/2 cup nutritional yeast flakes
- 1/2 teaspoon celery seed
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons onion powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons thyme
- 1 1/2 teaspoon dehydrated parsley
- 1/8 teaspoon turmeric
Ingredient Notes
We use Anthony’s Premium Nutritional Yeast Flakes. A 16-ounce container lasts a long time. It’s inexpensive and available on Amazon and has over 24,000 customer reviews, averaging 4.7 stars out of 5. Over 90 percent of the ratings have either a 4-star or 5-star rating.
Step 1. Process the Vegetable Bouillon Ingredients
Out of the container, the nutritional yeast is flakey. The nutritional yeast needs to be further processed to a powder-like consistency so it better dissolves when we reconstitute our dehydrated meals. This is easily done using your spice grinder.
This is the spice grinder we use; it’s available at Amazon.com. It has close to 4,000 customer reviews, with an average of 4.4 stars out of 5. It comes with 2 grinding bowls, a 2-blade grinder, and a 4-blade chopper. It’s also easy to clean out the spice residue when you’re finished.
We’ll also add the celery seed and kosher salt to the mix before we break down the nutritional yeast flakes using our spice grinder. Powdering the celery seed, kosher salt, and nutritional yeast optimizes the bouillon for use in our Dehydrator Chef 30-minute meals.
Step 2. Combine the Ingredients
Empty the powdered contents of the spice grinder into the canning jar.
Then, add the remaining ingredients to the canning jar.
Put the tight-fitting lid on the canning jar and shake it to mix up the ingredients thoroughly.
Step 3: Storing Your Homemade Vegetable Bouillon
We’ll use a food-safe desiccant packet for moisture control because we live in a fairly humid area. For our pint-size or quart-size canning jars, we’ll use a single food-safe 5-gram desiccant packet. The desiccant packets will absorb any moisture and help extend the bouillon’s shelf life.
We use these inexpensive food-safe desiccant packets, which are available from Amazon. These 5-gram packets have over 5000 of mostly 4- and 5-star customer reviews, with an average of 4.7 stars out of 5. Our bag of 60 desiccant packets will last quite a while because they can be recharged and reused multiple times. Other food-safe sizes are available.
Lastly, attach or include a short note describing the jar contents. The label identifies the canning jar contents, and the date helps with the rotation schedule. A first-in, first-out rotation helps us to use items that have been on the shelf the longest, so we’re using the oldest food first. This method helps us maintain the integrity of dehydrated products. The note also lets me know where to go in my dehydrator logbook if I want to make an update.
Weights, Measures, and Serving Sizes
Generally, use between 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons of the homemade vegetable bouillon powder to 1 cup liquid.
One tablespoon of this homemade vegetable bouillon weighs approximately 8 grams.
Homemade Vegetable Bouillon Powder Nutrition Information
Approximate Serving Size: 8 grams | Calories: 30kcal | Total Fat: 1g | Saturated Fat: 0g | Cholesterol: 0mg | Sodium: 275mg | Carbohydrate: 3g | Dietary Fiber: 2g | Sugar: 0g| Protein: 4g
Homemade Vegetable Bouillon Powder
Equipment
- Common kitchen tools (including cutting boards, spice grinder, measuring tools, etc.)
- Canning jars with tight-fitting lids
- Desiccant packets for moisture control (optional)
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup nutritional yeast flakes
- 1/2 teaspoon celery seed
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons onion powder
- 1 1/2 teaspoons thyme
- 1 1/2 teaspoons dehydrated parsley
- 1/8 teaspoons turmeric
Instructions
Process the Vegetable Bouillon Ingredients
- Combine the nutritional yeast flakes, celery seed, and kosher salt into the spice grinder.1/2 cup nutritional yeast flakes, 1/2 teaspoon celery seed, 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- Pulse the spice grinder several times until the nutritional yeast flakes resemble a coarse powder.
Combine the Ingredients
- Empty the contents of the spice grinder into a canning jar.
- Add remaining ingredients.1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder, 1 1/2 teaspoons onion powder, 1 1/2 teaspoons thyme, 1 1/2 teaspoons dehydrated parsley, 1/8 teaspoons turmeric
- Cover the canning jar with the tight-fitting lid. Then shake to combine.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is only an estimate and may differ depending on the ingredients you use.