vegetable broth, you're [probably] fired.

I bought some vegetable broth for cooking, and I am not impressed. I bought a four-pack of one-cup containers by Pacific Natural Foods, and it tastes... not good. The taste is almost metallic, with none of the roundness I'd expect from any sort of broth. I used it in some simple pumpkin soup today and all I could taste was the sharp weird taste of the veggie broth. Ok that's an exaggeration... I could taste pumpkin too, but the bad broth taste was very distracting.

Do you have experience with vegetable broth? Do you think I bought a bum brand or batch, and I should give it another try, or do you think this is par for the course and I should go back to animal broths?

(I am an omnivore but I try to limit my meat consumption where possible)

Thanks for sharing your experiences!

i've used veggie broth only rarely; i usually use chicken stock.  but i have to say, homemade chicken stock is definitely worth the trouble.

i buy roasted chickens at the grocery store, take the meat off, and make stock.  i put the standard onion, celery, carrots, garlic, bay leaf, etc.  i also put in a half a lime and quite a lot of tarragon.  it's really delicious, and of course low in sodium.  i boil it down so that it's quite concentrated and use it in all kinds of things: soups, sauces, etc. 

i actually don't even like chicken that much; i usually have to force myself to eat the meat after the first meal.  but i still buy them for the stock ;)

I don't really like prepackaged vegetable broth either. Homemade vegetable broth, on the other hand, is awesome. You can find the recipe anywhere -- you just need onion, carrots, celery and you can add many other veggies too (zucchini, squash, etc.)

Then you can have the boiled vegetables as a light but filling side dish with a little dash of olive oil, salt and pepper and chopped parsley; freeze the vegetable broth, even in cubes for your convenience. it's great for soups, risotto etc.

I think it's the brand. I've tried both vegetable and chicken stock from Pacific Natural Foods and found them both to taste funny and have an odd odor. I now use Kitchen Basics with good results.

I put all of my veggie scraps in a bag in the freezer.  About once a month, I use them to make my own veggie stock.  I freeze it in muffin tins, so I have little chunks I can throw into sauces that are too thick and things like that.  I'm not a huge fan of the Pacific veggie broth, either.  If I need something in a pinch, and don't have any homemade stock around, I use mushroom broth (which is either made by Pacific or Imagine).

I have used chicken or beef broths but it is hard to find one that isn't full of stuff I don't want to eat, like MSG, hydrogenated anything, etc.   When I can find them, I use organic mixes.  I also tend to favour recipes that don't need boullion to begin with to avoid this issue altogether.

It really is probably the Pacific brand. I saw the 32 oz boxes on sale for $.89 so I bought a couple. It wasn't very good, it seemed to have a strong citrus taste. But I've used Swanson and Kitchen Basics vegetable broths before and they were both fine.