15 Hearty Stew Recipes to Ride Out the Winter

This time of year, few things are as satisfying as a rich, hearty stew. We've got plenty of dishes to keep you going until spring, from paprika-scented Hungarian goulash and Tuscan bean, bread, and vegetable stew to meaty carne adovada and chicken stews that come together in just half an hour in the pressure cooker. Find them all in our collection of 15 stew recipes to fight off the winter.

Beef

All-American Beef Stew

Our version of a classic American beef stew is made with mushrooms, onions, carrots, peas, potatoes, and beef chuck roll. We build the stew slowly to layer flavors and add in a trio of umami boosters—Worcestershire, anchovies, and soy sauce—for extra savoriness. The beef should be perfectly tender in about 2 1/2 hours. It's tempting to let it go longer, but the meat will start to dry out.

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Rich and Flavorful Guinness Beef Stew With Potatoes

Guinness stew sounds great, but the problem is that after a few hours simmering away the relatively light beer gets completely lost. To make Guinness stew that really tastes like Guinness, we reinforce the coffee and chocolate flavors of the beer with actual coffee and bittersweet chocolate. Beyond those secret ingredients, the stew isn't too different from our American version.

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Boeuf Bourguignon (Beef Stew With Red Wine, Mushrooms, and Bacon)

We use beef chuck again for our take on boeuf bourguignon, though other cuts will work. You have lots of options when it comes to the wine—pretty much any dry red will work fine, even if it's been open a few days too long. Because the vegetables that stew with the meat get cooked to death, we replace them with freshly sautéed ones before serving.

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Hungarian Goulash (Beef Stew With Paprika)

There are tons of variations on goulash, but this Hungarian-American version is the one to pick on a cold winter day. The dish follows our basic stew technique and is flavored with carrots, celery, onions, red peppers, and paprika. It's worth the effort to seek out good Hungarian paprika, which tastes much better than what you'll find in the average supermarket.

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Hot Ukrainian Borscht (With Beets, Beef, Pork, and More)

When you think of borscht you probably think of beets and cabbage, and this recipe has both. But more than just a vegetable soup, this borscht is packed with a ton of meat: short ribs, marrow bones, pork belly, a smoked ham hock, and kielbasa. Add in the potatoes, turnips, and celery root and you end up with a stew so hearty you can stand a spoon straight up in it.

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Chicken

Colombian Chicken Stew With Potatoes, Tomato, and Onion

Thanks to the magic of pressure cooking, it's possible to make an awesome chicken stew in practically half an hour. This recipe could hardly be any easier—all you do is combine potatoes, tomatoes, onion, bay leaves, and a broken-down chicken in the pressure cooker and turn it on. You don't even need to add stock and water, because at pressure the veggies release plenty of liquid.

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30-Minute Pressure Cooker Chicken With Chickpeas, Tomatoes, and Chorizo

Just about as quick, this chicken stew is made with canned chickpeas and tomatoes, Spanish-style chorizo, and onion. It'll seem too soupy when you open the pressure cooker, but cooking it a few minutes at high heat thickens it up to a proper stew consistency. We hit it with a little sherry vinegar at the end, then serve with fresh parsley and extra-virgin olive oil.

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Quick and Easy Pressure Cooker Chicken, Lentil, and Bacon Stew With Carrots

A pressure cooker can tenderize a whole chicken in just 20 minutes, the same time it takes to cook dried lentils. Here we cook those two ingredients with onion, carrots, parsley, and pancetta. The fat in the pancetta renders out and emulsifies with the chicken stock and the starch from the lentils to make a thick sauce.

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Quick and Easy Pressure Cooker Chicken and Black Bean Stew

This stew takes a little longer (40 minutes at pressure), but in that time you can fully cook dried black beans. We stew the beans with chicken legs, smoked sausage, onion, and a can of diced green chilies—go with Hatch chilies if you can find them. We also throw in cilantro stems, saving the leaves for garnish.

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Black Bean Soup With Chorizo and Braised Chicken

No pressure cooker? Don't worry, this last chicken stew just needs a pot and some time. We make it with black beans, chicken, and Spanish chorizo and flavor it with serranos, garlic, cumin, and chipotles in adobo. Dried black beans have the best texture and absorb the most flavor, but canned ones will work okay in their place.

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The Rest

Ribollita (Hearty Tuscan Bean, Bread, and Vegetable Stew)

You don't need meat to make a rib-sticking stew—this vegan version is plenty hearty. Invented as a way to use leftover minestrone, it's packed with beans, bread, and lots of vegetables. Our recipe calls for garlic, onion, carrots, celery, leek, turnip, kale, and squash, but you can use any vegetables you'd like.

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Classic Oyster Stew With Fennel

If you want to get technical, oyster stew is more of a soup—it only cooks for 20 minutes. But whatever you call it, this briny mix of aromatics, fennel, oysters, and milk is totally delicious. Use freshly shucked oysters if you want, but pre-shucked ones will taste just about the same.

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Hearty One-Pot Black-Eyed Pea Stew With Kale and Andouille

This Cajun-inspired stew is made with black-eyed peas, andouille, and the Cajun trinity of onions, green bell peppers, and celery. Chunks of salt pork add richness and texture and kale helps bulk the soup up into a full meal. Like a lot of stews, this one's even better the next day.

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Greek Drunken Pork Stew in Red Wine

Beef stew is king in America, but pork takes just as well to the slow-cooking treatment. The recipe is fairly hands off—brown the pork shoulder, sauté some onions and garlic, then pour in red wine and a mixture of tomato juice, cayenne, oregano, nutmeg, and bay leaves and let the whole thing simmer away in the oven until the pork is tender.

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Carne Adovada (New Mexico-Style Pork With Red Chilies)

If you want something seriously meaty, you can't do much better than carne adovada. This New Mexican dish is made of big hunks of pork shoulder cooked in a thick, flavorful chili sauce. To get the best chili flavor we start with dried peppers, toast them in a skillet, simmer until tender, then blend them into a purée. We like to serve carne adovada taco-style, with corn tortillas and all the fixings.

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