Vegetable stew is one of the healthiest and easiest dishes to prepare. In the summer it is prepared from seasonal vegetables, in the winter - with cabbage, potatoes, frozen vegetable mixture. Vegetable stew is a must on the vegetarian menu; many people make it during the fast. However, if desired, it can be made with meat, and then it will become more satisfying. So experienced housewives know well how to make vegetable stew from different types of vegetables, and have several recipes for this versatile dish in stock. At the same time, they continue to collect new recipes for vegetable stew, since there are a huge number of options for its preparation.
Cooking features
At first glance, it may seem that cooking a vegetable stew is quite simple: chop the vegetables, put them in a saucepan and simmer. In fact, this process is more complicated and has several subtleties. If you do not know them, the finished dish will look unsightly, although it will remain tasty.
- All vegetables have their own structure, and therefore it takes different times to bring them to readiness. For this reason, it is not recommended to put all vegetables in a pot or cauldron at once. Indeed, in this case, some of them will be digested, while others, on the contrary, will remain half-baked. Observing the order in which the food is placed is one of the main rules for preparing a delicious vegetable stew.
- If the products are fried before stewing, they will be tastier, but the calorie content of the finished dish will also increase from this. If you decide to fry the products, then it is best to fry each of them separately and only then combine.
- A beautiful vegetable stew is obtained if the pieces of vegetables in them have approximately the same shape and are approximately equal in size. At the same time, it is recommended to cut vegetables medium-sized, although it is also not worth doing very small pieces.
- Eggplant is often included in vegetable stews. These vegetables contain a harmful substance that gives them bitterness, therefore, they need preliminary preparation. It consists in soaking the eggplant in salt water. To do this, 10 g of salt is dissolved in a liter of water. You can simply cut the eggplants in half, salt, and after a while rinse - the effect will be the same: the salt will draw out the solanine and the eggplants will become tasty and safe.
- If you make a stew with meat, then cook it first, since it takes much longer to bring meat to the desired condition than stewing vegetables.
- You can use spices, herbs, fresh herbs, and tomato paste to give the vegetable stew an extra taste and seductive aroma. In cases where fresh tomatoes are included in the dish, tomato paste is usually not added.
As already mentioned, there are a lot of vegetable stew recipes. You can make it not only in a saucepan, but also in an oven, multicooker. Therefore, the cooking technology of this dish cannot remain unchanged, it depends on the chosen method and the specific recipe.
Classic winter vegetable stew
- white cabbage - 0.3 kg;
- potatoes - 0.75 kg;
- green beans (you can use frozen) - 0.3 kg;
- carrots - 0.3 kg;
- onions - 150 g;
- turnip - 0.3 kg;
- tomato puree - 50 ml;
- butter - 50 g;
- wheat flour - 20 g;
- vegetable broth or water - 0.5 l;
- cloves - 3 pcs.;
- cinnamon - on the tip of a knife;
- salt, black pepper - to taste.
Cooking method:
- Wash the cabbage, remove the upper limp leaves. Chop.
- Peel the onion and cut into small pieces.
- Peel the carrots and cut into cubes no larger than 1 cm.
- Peel the turnips, cut them into the same chunks as the carrots.
- Peel the potatoes and chop with a knife too.
- Boil water in a small saucepan, add beans and cabbage, cook for 10 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to remove the vegetables from the pot or place them in a colander. Do not pour the broth - if you do not have vegetable broth, then you can use it in the next stages of preparation.
- Fry the flour in a dry skillet. When its color becomes caramel, pour the vegetable broth into the pan in a thin stream, whisking it constantly with a whisk so that there are no lumps.
- Add tomato paste, stir and heat the sauce for about 5 minutes, stirring constantly. Turn off the heat, remove the skillet from the stove, and pour the sauce into a bowl or other clean container.
- Wash the pan, dry it, put butter on it. Put on fire and melt butter. Add chopped onion and sauté over medium heat until golden brown.
- Place the potatoes on the onion and fry for 2-3 minutes.
- Put turnips and onions in a saucepan, pour in a little sauce. Simmer vegetables over low heat for 5 minutes. Add cabbage, beans, potatoes and onions. Season with salt, pepper, add cinnamon and cloves.
- Pour over the remaining sauce, stir and cook for another 15-20 minutes, until all vegetables are tender enough.
- Reduce heat to low and let stew in a saucepan, covered, for 10 minutes. It is better if the pan is thick-bottomed. The cauldron is even more suitable for cooking stew.
Arrange the finished stew on plates and serve as a main course or side dish. Stew, cooked as a side dish, goes well with any meat dishes, as well as with sausages. For example, sausages are in good harmony with vegetable stew prepared according to the given recipe.
Classic summer vegetable stew
- eggplant - 0.5 kg;
- zucchini - 0.5 kg;
- sweet pepper - 0.5 kg;
- potatoes - 0.5 kg;
- carrots - 150 g;
- onions - 150 g;
- garlic - 3 cloves;
- tomatoes - 0.5 kg;
- fresh herbs - 100 g;
- vegetable oil - 80 ml;
- salt, pepper - to taste.
Cooking method:
- Peel and cut the eggplants into small cubes. Dip them in cool salted water for 20 minutes, then rinse in running water and pat dry with paper towels.
- Peel the zucchini, cut it lengthwise, remove the seeds with a spoon. If you have small, young zucchini, just wash and pat them dry with a kitchen towel.
- Cut the zucchini into cubes about the same size as the eggplant.
- Wash the bell pepper, cut the stalk, remove the seeds. Cut into small squares.
- Peel the potatoes and cut them into pieces of the same shape and size as the other vegetables.
- Peel the onion and cut into small pieces.
- Peel and chop the carrots on a coarse grater.
- Chop the garlic finely with a knife.
- Cut the tomatoes into cubes. It will be even better if you rinse them with boiling water and clean them before this, although this is not necessary.
- Chop the herbs finely with a knife.
- Heat vegetable oil in a thick-bottomed saucepan or cauldron, put onions and carrots in it. Fry them until the onions are golden brown.
- Add bell peppers, fry the onions and carrots with them for 3-4 minutes.
- Add the zucchini and eggplant. Fry them for 5 minutes.
- Put potatoes with vegetables and fry them with it for another 5 minutes.
- Add the tomatoes and garlic to the dish, season with salt and pepper.
- Simmer the vegetable stew over low heat for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. You can add water only if there is not enough liquid released from the vegetables and they begin to burn.
- Pour the herbs into the stew, stir. Turn off heat and let stew for 10 minutes.
This stew is good to cook in the summer, when fresh zucchini, eggplant and tomatoes are very inexpensive or, even better, grow in the beds on your backyard.
French vegetable stew (ratatouille)
- zucchini - 0.4 kg;
- eggplant - 0.4 kg;
- tomatoes - 0.4 kg;
- olive oil - 20 ml;
- provencal herbs, salt, pepper - to taste.
Cooking method:
- Wash vegetables and cut into slices no more than half a centimeter thick.
- Dip the eggplants in salted water for 20 minutes, then rinse and dry.
- Brush a baking dish with olive oil. It will be better if you choose a round shape.
- Arrange the vegetables in a spiral shape. They need to be alternated in a strict order and overlapped so that they all fit.
- Drizzle the vegetables with the remaining oil and sprinkle with salt, pepper, dried or fresh herbs.
- Send the mold to the oven and turn it on. Bake vegetables at 200 degrees for 45 minutes.
Serve ratatouille to the table in the form or spread out on plates. If desired, 10 minutes before readiness, the dish can be sprinkled with grated cheese, then it will turn out even tastier.
Bulgarian-style vegetable stew with minced meat
- potatoes - 1 kg;
- bulgarian pepper - 0.5 kg;
- minced pork and beef - 0.5 kg;
- tomatoes - 0.5 kg;
- water - 0.25 l;
- vegetable oil - 50 ml;
Cooking method:
- Peel potatoes and cut into cubes.
- Wash the peppers, cut off the stalks and remove the seeds. Cut the pulp into not too small cubes. The stew will look beautiful if you take one red pepper, one of a different color.
- Cut the tomatoes into cubes.
- Heat the oil in a deep frying pan and fry the minced meat in it for 10 minutes.
- Add pepper and fry the minced meat with it for another 5 minutes.
- Enter potatoes and tomatoes. Season with salt and pepper to taste, cover with water.
- Simmer vegetables with minced meat over low heat for about 30 minutes.
- Pour in the herbs finely chopped with a knife, stir, continue cooking for another 5 minutes.
The vegetable stew prepared according to this recipe is somewhat reminiscent of lecho, only with potatoes and minced meat.
Spanish vegetable stew
- zucchini - 0.5 kg;
- sweet pepper - 0.5 kg;
- tomatoes - 1 kg;
- onions - 100 g;
- vegetable oil - as needed;
- sugar - 5 g;
- salt, pepper, herbs - to taste.
Cooking method:
- Pour boiling water over the tomatoes, peel. Grind with a blender or rub through a sieve.
- Add finely chopped greens, salt, sugar and pepper to tomato puree, mix well.
- Wash the zucchini, dry it, cut into circles.
- Wash the pepper. After removing the stem and seeds, cut each vegetable in half lengthwise. Cut into half rings.
- Peeled the onion, also cut into halves of the rings.
- In one pan, fry the onion and pepper in oil, fry the zucchini in the other.
- Place the fried vegetables in one pan, top with the tomato sauce and simmer for 30 minutes.
Sprinkle with chopped herbs before serving. Try to get more sauce on everyone's plate - it's delicious.
Vegetable stew is prepared in almost all countries of the world, so there are a huge number of recipes for this dish, and each has its own trait that makes the dish unique.
The recipe for vegetable stew is present in the cookbooks of almost all the peoples of the world. It is simply called differently. In Moldova it is guvech, and in France it is ratatouille. Italian chanfotta, Indian sabji, Armenian aylazan and Macedonian zarzavat are also very close relatives. Stew is also a very budget dish. All vegetables in the house are suitable: tomatoes and potatoes, bell pepper, eggplants and zucchini, cabbage and carrots, pumpkin, turnips, onions ... The main thing is that the components are in good harmony with each other. If the stew is cold, you can put it on top of toasted toast for a delicious sandwich. And just on a plate as a snack, it will look great. Pour sour cream over a hot stew - a great vegetarian main course. And as a side dish, it goes well with meat or fish. Below are some tips on how to make a vegetable stew.
General rules
First, something about the dish itself. The notion that stews are a mix between liquid puree and thick soup is fundamentally wrong. In this dish, all vegetables should keep their shape as much as possible. And at the same time, be completely prepared. Considering that vegetables require different times for cooking, you should first put solid ingredients (carrots, potatoes) in the pan, and only then more tender ones (tomatoes, cabbage). It is better to cook stews in a thick-walled saucepan. Sometimes there are recipes designed for a frying pan or oven. This dish is also very tasty in a slow cooker. Otherwise, the vegetable stew recipe is extremely simple and provides an opportunity for culinary inspiration. The main thing is to choose the ingredients that accompany each other. Cut them into medium-sized cubes and simmer.
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Stew with mushrooms
The best utensil for this dish would be an Asian wok pan, but a regular one will work too.
- We heat it up with a little bit of vegetable oil. Fry the finely chopped onion.
- We clean four hundred grams of mushrooms (any edible), boil if desired. Add them to the onion pan. This vegetable stew recipe allows you to use not only fresh mushrooms, but also frozen and dried ones.
- When the onion turns reddish yellow, add the hard vegetables: chopped thin strips two carrots and a quarter celery root.
- Cover the pan with a lid and simmer the dish over low heat for ten minutes.
- In the meantime, we are engaged in soft vegetables. Cut into strips three peeled bell peppers (preferably red). Shred half a head of white cabbage, add a little salt to it, wrinkle it with our hands.
- Throw it into a frying pan, mix, continue to simmer under the lid.
- Already at the very end, salt the dish, add spices, a strained jar of canned white beans and squeeze out two cloves of garlic.
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Turkish recipe
To prepare the dish, we use a baking dish. The Turkish Vegetable Stew recipe gives you a lot of creativity. The basic rule is to first bake the ingredients, and then fill them with yogurt sauce. The main components can be eggplants, bell peppers, zucchini. You can add two or three potatoes. If your oven has a grill function, vegetables can be pre-browned.
- We clean zucchini, eggplant, potatoes, peppers. Cut into thin slices, and pepper into strips.
- We spread the vegetables in a mold covered with baking paper, pour over with vegetable oil (five tablespoons). Cook on medium temperatures for about forty minutes.
- For the sauce, mix a glass of natural yogurt with two cloves of crushed garlic, a pinch of salt and chopped dill.
Vegetable ragout with zucchini in the sleeve
This recipe will also allow us to prepare a meat dish.
- Dice the courgettes, bell peppers, onions, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, garlic. You can add veal or lamb - but this is not necessary: \u200b\u200bthe vegetarian dish is also very tasty.
- Salt, sprinkle with pepper, dried seasonings (cumin, hops-suneli).
- We fold it into the sleeve, pour in some white wine and put it in the refrigerator.
- After an hour we release the air from the bag and put it in the oven. Cooking for an hour and a half at 170 degrees.
- We take out, cut the bag, sprinkle the dish with fresh herbs.
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This is a very tasty and satisfying dish. The main ingredient here is potatoes. It will need a kilogram.
- Peel the tubers, cut into cubes and fry in vegetable oil until golden brown.
- We shift the potatoes to the duckling (or cauldron). And we send three zucchini cut with washers to the pan. Fry them on both sides. We spread it on potatoes.
- Fry 300 grams of chopped white cabbage. We place it on the zucchini. Salt each layer of vegetables.
- Making the sauce. For him, first fry one chopped onion. Dilute a tablespoon of tomato paste in a glass of boiling water. Fill in the browned onion. Salt, pepper, sweeten with sugar.
- Pour vegetables with this sauce. Simmer under a lid over low heat for about twenty minutes.
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Georgian Adjapsandali
You can cook this stew from vegetables in a slow cooker, but also in the traditional way - in a cauldron.
- Dice two eggplants, sprinkle with salt and leave to exude bitterness.
- Finely chop two onions, but cut two tomatoes and two bell peppers coarsely so that they do not turn into porridge during cooking.
- Pour vegetable oil into the multicooker bowl and put the onion. We put the unit on the "Fry" mode, do not lower the lid.
- After a quarter of an hour, add pepper and tomatoes and leave to cook for another fifteen minutes.
- Strain off the eggplants, rinse them from excess salt and place them with vegetables. We also add 400 grams there. green beans. Stir and add a little water. We cover the multicooker and set it to the "Quenching" mode.
- After forty minutes, add finely chopped cilantro and basil greens, squeeze out three garlic cloves. Stir, salt and season with spices. We continue to simmer for another twenty minutes.
I have a large, strong and close-knit family with a good appetite 🙂 That is why I often ask myself: what are the economical dishes so that the costs are cheap, and I still don’t want to waste a lot of time at the stove (after all, there are many other interesting things to do besides cooking) , and also so that the final dish is tasty and to the liking of all family members. Vegetable stew without meat, made from juicy and seasonal vegetables - this is the very food that my homemakers gobble up on both cheeks and ask for more!
I am very lucky, my family loves vegetables and vegetable dishes, so in the autumn-summer period we always have a varied menu. I can cook deliciously, cauliflower or white cabbage, sweet peppers, tomatoes, asparagus beans and so on. In other words: everything that is in season, what now contains maximum vitamin - all this can be seen on our table.
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Ingredients:
- 2 eggplants
- 1 large carrot or 2 medium sized
- 3 sweet peppers (white grain)
- 3 cream tomatoes
- salt pepper
- vegetable oil
Vegetable stew made with seasonal vegetables
- We prepare vegetables: cut the blue (eggplant) into a medium cube. If your eggplants are bitter, then you can soak them in salt water for 7-10 minutes, then drain the water. Or sprinkle with salt, wait the same amount of time for the juice to come out, then rinse the blue ones under running water.
- Cut the carrots into rings or half rings.
- Dice peppers and tomatoes.
- Fry eggplant cubes in vegetable oil until they change color: the flesh becomes more transparent, the barrels are browned.
- Then add the rest of the vegetables and a pinch of salt. Cover with a lid and simmer until the vegetable stew is fully cooked. The tomatoes will juice up, so all the vegetables will be juicy and soft.
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A few minutes before the stew is ready, you can add a little salt and sprinkle with ground allspice, or do it on a plate.
The vegetable stew with eggplant and tomatoes is ready.
Enjoy your meal! Recipe from Zhenya Eliseeva.