Our friends at ChefSteps love producing updated versions of homemade staples — making recipes easier, more waste-conscious, or better suited for alternative diets. Today, chef and founder Grant Crilly demonstrates how to make a thick, shiny, umami-packed demi-glace out of vegetables instead of beef.
This method combines roasted vegetables with the process of making a traditional broth. After roasting a mix of sweet and savory vegetables to the brink of burning, Crilly adds water back to the dish and returns the whole thing to a warm oven, pulling the caramelized flavors out of the vegetables and into the liquid. Then all that's left is to strain and thicken the liquid (using a pinch of pectin and xanthan gum), and you have a vegan, wheat-free demi-glace in less than 2 hours.
Toss it with pasta, use it to glaze vegetables, or double back your veggie-forward cooking and pour it over a cut of meat: This flavorful sauce goes with everything. For the full recipe, click here.
