The leaves are turning, the evenings are closing in and there’s a crispness in the air that’s crying out for warming, hearty dinners. Enter stew season! From traditional British favourites and slow-cooked classics to richly spiced recipes inspired by kitchens around the world, these hearty dishes are made for chilly days and cosy nights. It’s time to dig out your casserole dish for a collection of cosy one-pot wonders that will happily see you through autumn and winter.
Persian Lamb & Herb Stew
Persian cuisine is famed for its rice dishes, kebabs and delicious desserts, but its stews are every bit as tasty. Known as khoresht, these slow-cooked dishes usually combine meat, herbs, pulses and spices. And if you’re looking for a true Persian classic, few are more celebrated than this lamb and herb stew known as ghormeh sabzi, widely considered to be Iran’s national dish. The lamb’s gently simmered with kidney beans, parsley and fenugreek, and the dried limes add a citrusy tang to the rich sauce. Once slow cooked and ready to go, it’s served with saffron rice to soak up every last bit of the scrumptious sauce!
Tom Kerridge’s Braised Pig Cheek Stew with Butterbeans & Chorizo
Think Spanish cuisine and you think of paella and tapas, but Spain’s slow-cooked stews are every bit as scrummy. From rustic mountain casseroles to richly spiced dishes from the country’s southern regions, Spanish stews are packed full of flavour - and this braised pig cheek stew from Michelin-maestro Tom Kerridge is no exception.
The pig cheeks are first browned before being slow-cooked with a whole host of amazing ingredients. Sweet peppers and creamy butterbeans are added towards the end, and the herbs - thyme, rosemary and bay leaves - simply add to the finish. The result is a tender winter warmer that’s perfect for serving with crusty bread. Buen provecho!
Beef Bourguignon with Purple Sprouting Broccoli
French cuisine is often celebrated for its more subtle dishes or delicate pastries, but it also delivers a wealth of classic rustic dishes. Perhaps none more so than the world-famous beef bourguignon.
And the best bit is that this Gallic great is really easy to make at home. You brown the beef with the pancetta before gently braising it with the vegetables, herbs, wine and stock until soft and jam-packed full of flavour. Served with a simple side of purple sprouting broccoli, and homemade warm crusty baguettes if you feel in the baking mood, this is French rustic farmhouse cookery at its delicious best.
Kidney Bean Stew with Sweet Potatoes & Oranges
This incredible Indian-inspired stew is a vegetarian one-pot wonder you can make at home. Ginger and garlic are fried with fenugreek seeds, cumin, garam masala, turmeric and herbs, creating an intensely fragrant base. Sweet potatoes and tomatoes are simmered with tamarind until tender, before the kidney beans and juicy orange segments are chucked in at the end. It’s sweet, sour, savoury and veggie, and guaranteed to warm you up on a cold November night.
Calamari Stew with Garlic Toast
Italian stews don’t always need hours on the hob, and including prep this calamari stew’s ready in under half an hour. Like many Italian dishes, garlic-infused olive oil is the base, and then the fiery sauce comes together with tomato purée, white wine, thyme and red pepper flakes. Once the squid’s prepped, it’s simmered for mere minutes and then ready to be served with garlic toast, perfect for mopping up that wonderful sauce.
Goulash
Few stews have travelled quite as far from their original home as goulash. The recipe may trace its roots back to gulyás, a rustic Hungarian dish made by herdsmen as far back as the ninth or tenth century - the name comes from gulya, meaning cattle herd - and was traditionally cooked over an open fire with beef and onions. As it spread beyond Hungary, it evolved into thicker, richer variations, including this one.
This hearty take starts with browned beef braising steak, then slowly cooked with onion, garlic, paprika, caraway, tomatoes and a bundle of fresh herbs. Sour cream gives the sauce a mellow tang and creamy finish, and the whole dish is served with buttered egg noodles, although some versions use elbow macaroni.
Irish Lamb Stew with Herbed Goats Cheese Dumplings
Irish stew has long been a byword for hearty warming fare - the kind of dish originally designed to keep everyone going through chilly weather. This version adds a twist to the classic, with tender lamb, smoky bacon, creamy vegetables and soft goat’s cheese dumplings.
The lamb is studded with garlic and bacon before being slow-roasted in stock until tender. The cooking juices are transformed into a gravy, before the shredded lamb is added back into the pot. The dumplings are cooked separately until light and fluffy, with one or two added to each bowl. This is rustic Irish comfort food with a luxurious finish - hearty, warming and made for sharing.
Chicken & Chickpea Tagine with Apricots and Harissa Sauce
A tagine is both the dish itself, and the name of the earthenware pot it’s cooked in, and this Moroccan-inspired version mixes savoury chicken and earthy chickpeas with apricots, spices and the smoky heat of harissa. This stew is North African cooking at its best - sweet, savoury, spicy and seriously scrumptious!
The chicken thighs are browned before being simmered with onion, garlic, and spices. Chickpeas thicken the stew, dried apricots add a chewy, sweet taste, while the smoky harissa is balanced out by crème fraîche. Serve with couscous or warm flatbreads for a mouthwatering Moroccan marvel!
Spicy Cajun Seafood Stew
Cajun cooking was born in Louisiana, where French-speaking settlers adapted their traditional recipes to the ingredients of the American South. With its swamps, rivers and Gulf Coast, the region’s also one of America’s legendary seafood destinations, with dishes like shrimp and grits, catfish po’boys, crawfish étouffée and shellfish gumbo famous the world over, and we’ve brought these two traditions together in one sensational spicy cajun seafood stew.
The andouille sausage is browned before adding the Cajun seasoning, garlic, peppers and onions. Stir in clam juice and tomatoes, before the pot simmers for about half an hour, with the fish and prawns added at the end to cook through. Finished with fresh parsley and served with rice and hunks of crusty bread, this is a happy and hearty, scrumptious Southern supper.
Belgian Beef Stew
It’s known in Dutch as stoofvlees or stoverij, in French as carbonnade flamande, and in English as Flemish stew or Belgian stew, and few recipes demonstrate the comfort food feeling of rustic Low Countries cookery better than this amazing dish.
Firstly, the beef is browned and onions caramelised. Then comes the herbs and the famous Belgian beer - usual suspects include Oud Bruin, Abbey Beer or Flanders Red. Add a slice of bread thickly coated with mustard, and the whole lot cooks for a couple of hours until the meat’s soft and the flavours have melded together. Most often served with chips in melted butter layered over the top of the individual bowls, the whole thing’s then baked in the oven.
This is proper Belgian comfort food, and after a hearty main, what better way to finish than with a Belgian waffle layer cake for dessert! What’s not to like!
