
A vegetable stew recipe that is quick, cheap, and easy to make.
Vegetable stew ticks all the boxes for a great family dinner. It's healthy - packed with seven types of vegetables and pulses, and cheaper than making a similar meaty dish. Plus it's quicker than a meat-based stew - ready in only 40 minutes, half an hour of which is just bubbling on hob time. This hearty, tasty dish serves four but it's easy to bulk out with extra vegetables if you need them. Plus you can adapt it according to the seasons.
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 1 onion, peeled and sliced
- 2 carrots, peeled and diced
- 2 parsnips, peeled and diced
- 2 celery stalks, chopped
- 250g (8oz) swede, peeled and diced
- 600ml (1 pint) hot vegetable stock
- 400g can tomatoes
- 420g can butter beans, drained
- A handful of chopped parsley
WEIGHT CONVERTER
Method
- Heat the oil in a large pan, add the onion and fry slowly for 5 mins. Add the other vegetables, cover and fry over a medium heat for 5 minutes, so they start to soften.
- Pour in the stock and canned tomatoes, bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 10 minutes. Stir in the beans and cook for another 5 minutes, until the vegetables are tender.
- Sprinkle the vegetable stew with chopped parsley to serve.
Watch how to make vegetable stew
Top tips for making vegetable stew
Use whatever vegetables are cheap and abundant right now. Choose the ones marked as 'wonky' or 'imperfect', because they are cheaper, and once they're all chopped up and cooked there's no way to tell the difference.
We love it served with creamy mashed potato, homemade dumplings, or warm buttered bread but it's chunky enough to eat on its own, too. Make it on a Monday night to use up leftover veg from your Sunday roast.
If you have leftovers but love variety, you can blitz this stew in a food processor and turn it into soup.
What should I serve with vegetable stew?
We love this stew as bowl food on its own, with a little fresh parsley scattered over the top of a dollop of sour cream, but if you want to make it go further try it with a creamy mashed potato or a baked potato.
Homemade dumplings are another great option - you can dip them in the sauce. You could also serve it over couscous or an ancient grain like pear barley. For an even easier option, simply serve with a chunk of crusty buttered bread.
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Jessica Dady is Food Editor at GoodTo and has over 11 years of experience as a digital editor, specialising in all things food, recipes, and SEO. From the must-buy seasonal food hampers and advent calendars for Christmas to the family-friendly air fryers that’ll make dinner time a breeze, Jessica loves trying and testing various food products to find the best of the best for the busy parents among us. Over the years of working with GoodTo, Jessica has had the privilege of working alongside Future’s Test Kitchen to create how-to videos exclusively for GoodtoEat - as well as writing, testing, and shooting her own recipes. When she’s not embracing the great outdoors with her family at the weekends, Jessica enjoys baking up a storm in the kitchen with her favourite bakes being chocolate chip cookies, cupcakes, and a tray of gooey chocolate brownies.
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Vegetable stew
A vegetable stew recipe that is quick, cheap and easy to make and is an absolute family favourite. Speeded up by swapping haricot beans for canned butter beans, this meal is a winner
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