17 Hearty Stew Recipes to Celebrate the Arrival of Sweater Weather

Overhead view of Daube de Boeuf ala Gasconne — Serious Eats / Maureen Celestine

There are plenty of ways to differentiate a soup from a stew—the ratio of liquid to ingredients, for example, or the size to which said ingredients are cut. But let's put technical factors aside for a moment, and take a slightly less tangible approach: For starters, soup invites you to slide into a light cardigan and find comfort at the dining room table, while stew prefers you slip into your most obnoxiously thick knitwear—a turtleneck so chunky you can barely see over the top, for example—and settle in next to a roaring fire. If soup suggests you get on with your day, stew wants you to lick your bowl clean of its long-simmered sauce, then (please) take that nap you've been dreaming about for weeks.

Whether meaty or vegan, complex or as humble as can be, stews offer a kind of extreme comfort that few other dishes can. Here are 17 of our favorites, each worth digging out your beefiest turtleneck for.

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Italian Pressure-Cooker Chickpea and Pork Rib Stew

Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez

Creamy chickpeas, fall-off-the-bone pork ribs, and perfect nubbins of potato come together in this hearty and delicious stew. A pressure cooker makes it fast.

Italian Pressure-Cooker Chickpea and Pork Rib Stew
Nigerian Peanut Stew

Serious Eats / Vy Tran

Groundnut stew, the West African stew of simmered meat and vegetables coated in a velvety, thick groundnut (aka peanut) sauce, is rich and hearty—wonderful for chilly days.

Nigerian Peanut Stew
Spanish Beef Stew With Pimenton and Piquillo Peppers

Serious Eats / Anh Nguyen

This Spanish beef stews lean on bold, smoky flavors and long, slow cooking to transform a tough cut of beef into something rich and spoon-tender. Smoked paprika, roasted peppers, and red wine layer in depth, acidity, and sweetness, balancing the stew’s richness.

Spanish Beef Stew With Pimenton and Piquillo Peppers
Nigerian Beef Stew

Serious Eats / Maureen Celestine

A mainstay of many Nigerian meals, there are countless ways to make this ultra-flavorful dish. Here we start by cooking beef chuck in a seasoned broth, then reserve the resulting stock to cook the stew; to further deepen the beef's flavor, we roast it before adding it to the pot.

Nigerian Beef Stew

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Daube de Boeuf à la Gasconne (Gascogne-Style Beef Stew)

Serious Eats / Maureen Celestine

Bold and full-flavored, this beef and root vegetable stew from the Gascogne region of France is country cooking at its best. Using a tannic red wine native to the Gascogne region gives the stew its signature complex, assertive flavor, and cooking the stew at a very low temperature ensures the beef is tender.

Daube de Boeuf à la Gasconne (Gascogne-Style Beef Stew)
Boeuf Bourguignon (Beef Stew With Red Wine, Mushrooms, & Bacon)

Serious Eats / Fred Hardy

“One of the most delicious beef stews concocted by man,” according to Julia Child, and we agree. Here we cook the stew with large pieces of aromatic vegetables, then discard those in favor of fresh diced and lightly sautéed ones later, yielding a flavorful stew with vegetables that haven't been cooked to death.

Boeuf Bourguignon (Beef Stew With Red Wine, Mushrooms, and Bacon)
Soondubu Jjigae (Korean Soft Tofu Stew)

Serious Eats / Jessica Leibowitz

Kimchi, small dried anchovies, gochujang, and Korean chile flakes (all of which can be found in most Asian supermarkets) build complex layers of flavor in the broth—even though it all comes together in a remarkably short amount of time.

Soondubu Jjigae (Korean Soft Tofu Stew)
Ribollita (Hearty Tuscan Bean, Bread, and Vegetable Stew)

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

This hearty Tuscan riff on minestrone is loaded with soft vegetables and beans, and differentiates itself by being thickened with bread. The final consistency can be adjusted by leaving the stew more broth-y, or by cooking it down into a thicker porridge.

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

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

Serious Eats / Fred Hardy

Cooked in one pot, this easy-to make, easy-to-clean stew is perfect for a lazy Sunday. Not only that, but it becomes even more flavorful overnight in the fridge.

Hearty One-Pot Black-Eyed Pea Stew With Kale and Andouille
Quick and Easy Pressure Cooker Chicken and Black Bean Stew

Serious Eats / Greg Dupree

This easy, one-pot meal is packed with flavor and ready in under an hour. We stew black beans in the pressure cooker with spicy Hatch chiles, smoky andouille sausage, and chicken legs. The final product is rich and the chicken fall-off-the-bone tender.

Quick and Easy Pressure Cooker Chicken and Black Bean Stew
Cioppino (San Francisco Seafood Stew)

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

Good cioppino starts with a rich broth and ends with perfectly cooked fish. In this recipe, we carefully sequence the poaching of each type of seafood, then serve it with a roasted red pepper salsa that adds even more layers of flavor to SF’s most famous stew.

Cioppino (San Francisco Seafood Stew)
All-American Beef Stew

Classic all-American beef stew, optimized.
Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt

Liberated from the strong opinions tied to "authentic" beef bourguignon and goulash, American beef stew is open to much wider interpretations. Here, we opt for succulent beef and vegetables coated in an intense, umami-rich sauce.

All-American Beef Stew

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Gamja-tang (Korean Pork and Potato Stew)

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

Pork spareribs join large chunks of perfectly cooked potatoes and daikon in a broth flavored with doenjang, gochugaru, and perilla seeds. Consider this a superlative cold-weather stew.

Gamja-tang (Korean Pork and Potato Stew)
Traditional French Cassoulet

Serious Eats / Fred Hardy, Ana Kelly, Josh Hoggle

Here come the French with another famous meaty stew, this time a combination of poultry, sausage, pork, and beans all melded together under a rich, dark brown crust.

Traditional French Cassoulet
Classic Oyster Stew With Fennel

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

While it's not thick like a clam chowder or hearty like a beef stew, this oyster stew manages to soothe in its own perfectly restrained way; it’s also one of the simplest and quickest cold-weather comforts to prepare.

Classic Oyster Stew With Fennel
Goulash (Hungarian Beef and Paprika Stew)

Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt

This old-fashioned goulash is loaded with vegetables, beef, and its famous signature—sweet Hungarian paprika—making for a hearty winter meal.

Goulash (Hungarian Beef and Paprika Stew)

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Colombian Chicken Stew With Potatoes, Tomato, and Onion

Serious Eats / J. Kenji López-Alt

Ready to eat in just 30 minutes, this deceptively-simple Colombian stew is made in a pressure cooker without any added water; the end result is meat that falls off the bone and a richly-flavored broth with concentrated chicken and tomato flavors.

Colombian Chicken Stew With Potatoes, Tomato, and Onion