33 Hearty Stew Recipes (2024)

Stews are the ultimate cold-weather comfort food. Whether you prefer something classic, like a hearty beef stew in red wine sauce, or something lighter, like Gail Simmons' chicken stew, these recipes are our heartiest stews to warm you up.

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Bo Kho (Vietnamese Beef Stew)

Sop up this Vietnamese beef stew's fragrant broth — flavored with lemongrass, ginger, star anise, and plenty of fresh herbs — with a chewy baguette or ladle over noodles.

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Seafood Gumbo

Tiffany Derry, of Roots Southern Table in Dallas, grew up with gumbo. Her version includes chicken breasts and thighs, andouille sausage, blue crabs, shrimp, and a generous amount of okra.

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Short Rib Stew

When chef Ethan Stowell was growing up, his father was the family cook; beef stew was one of his specialties. Unlike his dad, who favored rump roast, Stowell uses short ribs, a marbled cut that turns fabulously succulent and tender when slow-simmered.

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Kale and White Bean Stew

Combining two Portuguese favorites — kale-and-sausage soup and a bean, sausage, and tomato stew — makes a simple, sensational one-pot meal. To keep the focus on the vegetables, we've used just a tiny amount of fresh sausage; you can add more, if you like, or substitute dried chorizo or pepperoni.

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Beef Stew in Red Wine Sauce

For this beef stew, chef Jacques Pépin uses a special piece of the shoulder called the flatiron steak. This long, narrow piece is extremely lean, tender, and moist, and it makes an ideal stew. He does not use stock, demiglace or even water. He makes his stew strictly with a robust red wine. This rich, winey beef stew is always a hit with his chef friends.

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Oven-Braised Veal Stew with Black Pepper and Cherries

A rich, wintry stew with a tart, slightly sweet bite from sour cherries gets its deep flavor from tender veal.

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Julia Child's Best Beef Stew

This beef stew is from Julia Child's first column in Food & Wine, and is a classic deeply flavorful long-simmered dish.

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Creamy Chicken Stew

On those hectic chilly weeknights when all you want is something quick, warm, and comforting, this refined creamy chicken stew is all you need.

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Green Curry Lobster Stew with Sweet Potato and Mushrooms

A pillar of Maine cooking, this aromatic lobster stew is enriched with umami-heavy Golden Mountain sauce and hen-of-the-woods mushroom confit.

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Brunswick Stew

A beloved comfort dish with roots in traditional Southern cuisine, this sweet-savory stew features tender braised pork shoulder and vegetables.

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Swiss Army Stew

This dish is simple, utilitarian fare meant for feeding a large group, and it’s deeply nourishing.

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Caribbean-Style Fish Stew

This bright, flavorful stew features a whole red snapper and is seasoned with thyme, garlic, ginger, lime, and Scotch bonnet peppers.

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Lamb Tagine with Green Olives and Lemon

When making most stews, cooks typically brown the meat before braising it; here, chef Ethan Stowell skips that step, which simplifies the Moroccan recipe and gives the lamb a buttery, melt-in-the-mouth texture. The dish is vibrantly flavored with ginger, cumin, coriander, olives, and lemon; the broth is delicious over couscous.

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Yucatán Pork Stew with Ancho Chiles and Lime Juice

Chef and butcher Tia Harrison breaks down a pig each week at San Francisco butcher shop Avedano's. She finds stew is a versatile way to use cuts like pork shoulder, shanks, and belly. Here, she cooks the stew with pleasantly bitter ancho chiles.

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Spicy Coconut Chicken Stew with Corn

This sweet and spicy coconut milk–based stew gets lots of bright flavor from spinach, basil, chiles, and lime juice.

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Chickpea Stew with Spinach and Chorizo

This stew, like all those in Catalonia, starts with sofrito, a thick sauce made with sautéed onions and tomatoes. Once you get all the ingredients in the pot, there's not much to do besides enjoy the aroma wafting from this hearty, spicy, soupy stew as it slowly cooks.

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Ed's Portuguese Fish Stew

This flavorful stew, named after chef Michael Cimarusti's Portuguese uncle, is loaded with clams, mussels, and cod as well as chunks of linguiça, a smoky, mildly hot, cured Portuguese sausage.

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Carbonnade à la Flamande (Flemish Beef Stew)

This classic Belgian beef stew is known for its sweet-sour combination of caramelized onions and beer. Any dark Belgian-style ale would be a good choice here. As with most stews, the dish will taste even better a day or two after it's made.

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Pork-and-Green-Chile Stew

A mix of mild chiles (poblano, Anaheim) and hot ones (serrano) gives body and heat to this quick braise made with boneless pork shoulder (ask your butcher to trim it for you).

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Giant Lima Beans with Stewed Tomatoes and Oregano Pesto

Tangy feta cheese, a bright herbal pesto and a crisp bread crumb topping all elevate this tomato-bean stew. It's sensational made with meaty Rancho Gordo giant limas from Peru, silky gigantes, or large limas from the grocery store.

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Chicken and Barley Stew with Dill and Lemon

This one-pot dinner from Top Chef judge Gail Simmons is an enriched take on classic chicken soup with rice; at once flavorful, hearty, and comforting.

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Hunter's Stew with Braised Beef and Wild Rice

David Ansel makes this stew with venison and venison stock, but it's equally delicious prepared with beef chuck. The meat is slowly braised in Madeira to bring out its rich flavor, then it's combined with beef-based broth and nutty, slightly crunchy wild rice.

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Oxtail and White Sweet Potato Stew

A red wine braise, complete with other mulling ingredients like fresh orange and whole spices, makes the oxtails in this stew fall-apart tender and flavorful. The longer the braise, the better, says New York chef JJ Johnson. "I forgot about it in the oven and returned to find it perfectly cooked," he says.

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Hunter's Sausage-and-Sauerkraut Stew

This Polish "hunter's stew" typically combines at least three different meats, from wild game to pork ribs, sausages, and veal. Chef Andrew Zimmern uses lightly smoked bacon, chicken thighs, and kielbasa in his version. He also adds roasted bell peppers for depth, buttery chanterelles, and crisp-tender fennel. The stew simmers with fermented sauerkraut, another traditional element. "Thankfully," says Zimmern, "[the sauerkraut] is available in almost any supermarket you walk into."

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Fisherman's-Style Seafood Stew

Chef Fabio Trabocchi of Casa Luca in Washington, D.C., says the key to this brodetto-inspired recipe is to cook the fish and shellfish in stages. The crusty ciabatta toasts make this stew a warming winter meal.

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Shrimp-and-Sausage Stew

Even though chef Linton Hopkins's stew is full of shrimp and sausage, the best part is the delicate lima beans, a Southern staple.

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Lamb Stew with Root Vegetables

Jim Clendenen's version of this classic French stew, called navarin d'agneau, was inspired by vegetables from an extraordinary organic produce purveyor, the Chef's Garden, in his native Ohio.

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Black-Eyed Pea Stew with Sausage

Top Chef judge Gail Simmons skips soaking beans, instead opting for black-eyed peas in this thick and luscious stew, which gets cooked right in the pot alongside spicy Italian sausage.

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Pork and Wild Mushroom Daube

The Provençal stews called daubes are cooked in wide-bellied, narrow-necked earthenware pots (daubières). The lids are specifically designed to trap moisture during cooking. A Dutch oven or a bean pot is a perfect stand-in for a daubière.

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Awaze Tibs (Ethiopian Spiced Lamb Stew)

Made with tender, boneless leg of lamb, this quick-cooking staple of Ethiopian home cooking is flavored with awaze sauce, a kicky blend of berbere spices, smoked paprika, lemon juice, and wine. Some cooks like it dry, but chef Hiyaw Gebreyohannes prefers it saucy — all the better for mopping up with Ethiopia's crêpe-like bread, injera.

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Lecsó (Hungarian Sausage Stew) with Ale

This recipe for lecsó, a traditional sausage, tomato, and bell pepper stew from Hungary, is made with beer for a deep, rich flavor.

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Beef Rib Eye and Vegetable Stew

This incredibly hearty stew can be on the table in less than half an hour.

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Pork and Tomatillo Stew

This spicy stew is loaded with pork and plenty of vegetables. California winemaker Andrew Murray makes it for his employees around harvest time. "It's our comfort food at the winery," he says. "And it's a nice excuse to stop for a few minutes and eat together, even when we're busy."

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