Every year, we look forward to the arrival of spring, with young greenery, and summer - when there is a great abundance of fresh vegetables and fruits. It is from young vegetables that most side dishes for meat dishes are prepared in the summer. TO vegetable side dishes can be attributed delicious vegetable stew with spicy herbs and spices.

Perhaps not every housewife knows how to cook delicious vegetable stew. So it's time to reveal secrets of making delicious vegetable stew. This dish can be used as a side dish or eaten as an independent dish.

Moreover, the dish can also be prepared with meat, after stewing any meat or poultry, using minced meat or high-quality sausages for cooking - then you get a complete dish, a real hit of the summer season!

It is worth noting the fact that meat is best absorbed by the body in the company of vegetables, not potatoes, no, but a variety of vegetables, both heat-treated and raw. Yes, and Mother Nature is generous with gifts in summer and autumn - crispy cabbage, eggplants and zucchini, peppers and tomatoes, a variety of fresh and aromatic herbs, a lot of juicy root vegetables. And all these vegetables will go well in a stew, both in its vegetable version and with meat.

Features of preparing stew from fresh vegetables

There is no need to pre-fry the vegetables to prepare the stew; it is simply not necessary; it is enough to use meat broth. At the end of cooking, you can add a little good butter to the finished dish for a special taste. But there are housewives who do not accept cooking vegetables without first frying, which is a pity. In this case, the vegetables lose some of their vitamins and the stew, most often, turns out to be too fatty.

True, there is another, alternative option, this is when only the onion is fried until transparent, and the remaining vegetables are added in order, starting with carrots. (The sequence of adding vegetables is described below).

But if meat is used, then onions and garlic are fried in oil, meat is added, brought almost to readiness, and only then comes the turn of all the other vegetables. Moreover, the stew can be cooked with broth, and you get a thick soup, or vice versa - evaporate all the excess liquid and then you get an appetizing second one.

Vegetable stew without meat, if the vegetables have not been additionally fried, you can give it even to kids, but only taking into account the fact that the dish does not contain a lot of salt and spices, and the child has already tried all the vegetables included in the composition.

List of ingredients for preparing vegetable stew

• Any meat, minced meat, poultry, semi-finished meat products - optional;
• Medium size potatoes – 5 pcs.;
• Small young zucchini;
• Fresh cabbage - half a fork;
• Fresh green peas – 15 pods;
• 2 heads of sweet onions;
• Young carrots – 300 gr.;
• Bell pepper – 2 pcs.;
• Ripe tomatoes – 3 pcs.;
• Young garlic - half a head;
• Eggplants – 1 pc.;
• Half a chili pepper;
• Refined vegetable oil – 85 ml;
• Salt and black pepper - to taste;
• A large bunch of greenery.

On a note! The good thing about a dish called stew is that the ingredients are not standardized. Products can be replaced or removed altogether. For example, you can remove red hot pepper from the base composition, and the dish will immediately become suitable for baby food. Or, for example, replace potatoes with beans, and white cabbage with cauliflower. The taste of the dish will immediately become different and thereby expand the home menu.

How to cook a delicious stew with vegetables?

If meat is used in the dish, then, as mentioned above, you need to fry chopped onions and garlic in oil and add meat to them. Semi-finished products and minced meat are easy enough to fry, but poultry and meat need to be fried and simmered with the addition of water or broth until almost done.

You can boil the meat separately for a dietary version of the stew, and use ready-made broth, but vegetables must be added to the stew in the order in which they are cooked.

Vegetables, whether from your garden or from the market (from the store), must be thoroughly washed before cooking using cool water. Those that need to be peeled are peeled, the stem of the rest is removed and they are cut. It is worth cutting them into small cubes, but carrots and potatoes should be cut a little smaller, so they will be ready faster.

It is best not to chop the tomatoes, but to chop them and turn them into sauce. You can do this using a food processor, but cutting the tomatoes in half and grating them so that the skin remains in your hands will work quite well.

Washed fresh herbs are chopped very finely, and hot chili peppers are best cut into thin half rings.

On a note! When handling hot peppers, use rubber gloves. Do not rub your eyes or touch your face with your hands. If you happen to get pepper juice in your eyes or on your skin, rinse immediately under cool running water.

Order of priority for adding vegetables to stew. Carrots and potatoes are added to meat products stewed with onions and garlic, then peppers and zucchini, then eggplants and tomatoes, cabbage and peas. Each addition of vegetables occurs at an interval of 10 minutes. The last things to be added to the stew are salt and pepper and fresh herbs. (If you are preparing a vegetable stew without adding meat products, then garlic is added at the end of cooking, along with spices and herbs).

In order for all the vegetables to undergo complete heat treatment and not remain raw, it is important to control the liquid level during the cooking process. By gradually adding broth or water, the thickness of the summer vegetable stew is also controlled.

During the cooking process, you don’t even need to stir the dish, laying the vegetables in layers as the top ones are cooked. Well, of course, you shouldn’t serve it right away; the stew needs to steep so that all the vegetables exchange flavors and “make friends” in the dish.

With meat, the cooking process will take approximately 1.5 hours, the vegetable version takes no more than 45 minutes.

Enjoy your meal!

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Vegetable stew is popular all over the world. It takes pride of place in every national cuisine. And no matter what it’s called (ratatouille in France or briam in Greece), the base is the same: chopped stewed vegetables.

The composition of the stew can be:

• vegetarian;
• with meat;
• with seafood;
• with beans;
• with mushrooms;
• with egg.

And according to the method of preparation, the dish is divided into:

• stewing;
• baking in the oven;
• cooking in a slow cooker.

To please your family and start preparing vegetable stew, you just need to decide on the choice of available products and the preferred cooking method.

Secrets of a delicious lunch

How to cook vegetable stew without it turning into porridge? What products to choose for cooking? And no matter what cooking recipe is chosen, there are a number of rules for an ideal result.

1. To make the dish look aesthetically pleasing, all ingredients must be cut into equal pieces. It is preferable that it be finely chopped, but you can vary the shape.
2. The perfect stew is each ingredient in its own saucepan. Because Since the products have different degrees of readiness, they should be stewed separately. But if the recipe involves quick cooking, then the vegetables are cooked together, but with a strict sequence of ingredients. Then the taste of each component will be felt.
3. When using eggplant in a recipe, it should be pre-treated to remove any bitterness. To do this, salt the vegetable cut into rings well and leave for 30 minutes. Afterwards, rinse it from salt and dry it. Then use according to the recipe.
4. To prepare a vegetable stew with maximum health benefits and a minimum of calories, the dish should be prepared without additional sauce. Although for some recipes the sauce contains all the flavor.
5. Improvisation is the key to success. The whole peculiarity is that you can experiment with vegetables by adding certain components, increasing the proportion of some products and reducing the content of others.

Vegetable stew recipes from around the world

Vegetable dishes are prepared in all parts of the world. Each nation brings its own individuality and originality to them. You can prepare a vegetable stew with eggplants and zucchini, potatoes and tomatoes, add meat or tofu to them. A variety of recipes will delight any gourmet, giving an ordinary dish a special taste.

Italian taste of summer

This light Italian dish will be a great appetizer on a summer day. Bright colors and unusual combinations of flavors will delight true connoisseurs of delicious food.

• Zucchini - 0.5 kg;
• Pumpkin - 0.5 kg;
• Cherry - 2 cups;
• Garlic - 2 cloves;
• Oregano, basil, parsley - 2 tbsp each. spoons;
• Salt, pepper - to taste.

To give the dish a special aroma and nutty taste, it is best to use squash pumpkin.

Cut zucchini and pumpkin into slices. Cut all cherry tomatoes in half. Pass medium-sized garlic through a press. Chop the leaves of oregano, basil and parsley so that you get 2 tbsp of each green. spoons.

Fry the zucchini and pumpkin in a hot frying pan in olive oil. Cook until the vegetables are soft, then add the tomatoes, garlic and herbs. Mix everything carefully and continue to simmer until the cherries become soft.

Season the prepared vegetables with pepper and salt to your taste. This stew can be served either hot or warm.

Hot passion in Mexican style

Vegetable stew with chicken is a hearty Mexican dish that fills you up well and can replace a full lunch. Beans, corn and chicken combine perfectly, giving a unique look to the dish with its variety of colors and variety of shapes.

• Chicken - 0.5 kg;
• Corn - 0.5 kg;
• Red beans - 0.4 kg;
• Tomatoes - 3 pcs;
• Sweet pepper - 3 pcs;
• Onion - 2 pcs;
• Cinnamon and dried spices (garlic, paprika, ground tomato) - ½ teaspoon each;
• Chili - ⅓ teaspoon;
• Salt - to taste.

It's best to prepare all the ingredients in advance. Chop the onion into half rings and cut the carrots into cubes. Remove the membranes with seeds from the peppers, cut them lengthwise into 4 parts and cut into strips. Also divide large tomatoes into 4 parts and cut into half rings.

If using canned beans and corn, drain the water. It is preferable to choose fillet from chicken meat. Cut the chicken into randomly shaped pieces of medium size.

The vegetables are placed in a frying pan in a certain sequence. First, fry the onion over medium heat until half cooked. Add carrots to it. After a couple of minutes, add pepper. Then add tomatoes. Add corn and beans last. Only after this, salt, pepper and season everything with spices.

Mix everything and add pieces of meat. The chicken should be stewed in vegetable sauce. In 10 minutes the stew will be ready.

Adzhapsandali - a view from the heights of the Georgian mountains

The traditional Georgian dish easily fits into technical kitchen innovations. Vegetable stew in a slow cooker is as tasty as a Georgian grandmother’s.

• Bell pepper - 2 pcs;
• Green beans - 400 g;
• Tomatoes - 3 pcs;
• Eggplant - 2 pcs;
• Onions - 2 pcs;
• Garlic - 3 cloves;
• Cilantro - a large bunch;
• Basil - 2 sprigs;
• Peppercorns - 10 pcs;
• Salt - to taste.

Properly prepared eggplants (without bitterness) are cut into a semicircle.

Chop the onion into small cubes. Cut tomatoes and peppers into medium-sized cubes.

Pour a little vegetable oil into the bowl and set the multicooker to “Baking”. Fry the onion in hot oil for 15 minutes.

Add tomatoes and peppers. Stir and fry for another 10 minutes.

Add eggplant and green beans. Pour in water until it covers the entire contents of the bowl.

Cook for an hour in the “Stew” mode.

Finely chop the cilantro and basil. Pass the garlic cloves through a press. And 15 minutes before the end of cooking, add all this to the vegetables. Add peppercorns and salt to taste to the stew.

French charm in ratatouille

This delicious French dish is very easy to prepare. All components are cut into slices and baked in the oven. Traditional ratatouille is a vegetable stew with zucchini and tomatoes. Whether you add sauce to them or not, make a classic ratatouille or vegetable stew with eggplant - there are enough options for every day.

For a simple ratatouille with herbs you will need:

• Eggplants - 2 pcs;
• Zucchini (green) - 2 pcs;
• Zucchini (yellow) - 2 pcs;
• Tomatoes - 5 pcs;
• Spicy herbs, salt - to taste.

Prepare the eggplants, remove the bitterness from them.

Cut all other products - zucchini, zucchini and tomatoes - into slices of the same thickness as the eggplant.

Place all the vegetables one by one in a baking dish: eggplant, zucchini, tomato, zucchini. Fill out the entire form with them. Sprinkle with salt and herbs on top, lightly drizzle with olive oil.

Cover the pan with paper and bake everything in the oven at 200 C for about an hour. Before serving, ratatouille should sit for about 10 minutes.

Classic Hungarian cuisine

Vitamins in winter, yummy food from a jar - it’s all about lecho. The dish from Hungary gained popularity and spread throughout Europe. Everyone knows the recipe for vegetable stew for the winter - it's peppers stewed in tomatoes with lots of carrots and onions. But traditional Hungarian lecso is different. And who said that vegetable stew cannot consist only of peppers and tomatoes?

• Sweet pepper - 2.5 kg;
• Tomato - 3 kg;
• Sugar - 100 gr;
• Salt - 2 teaspoons;
• Ground pepper - to taste.

Scald the tomatoes with boiling water and remove the skin. Grind the pulp in a meat grinder or blend with a blender. Put on fire to boil. This will be the pepper dressing. If there are no tomatoes, they can be replaced with 1 kg of tomato paste.

For beauty and a richer taste, you need to use different varieties of pepper. Cut the pepper into 2 halves, remove seeds and membranes. Cut it into pieces 1-2 cm wide.

Place the peppers in boiling tomato sauce and simmer over low heat for 15-20 minutes. During cooking, add sugar, ground pepper and salt to taste.

Place the finished hot lecho in clean pasteurized jars, roll up the lid tightly - and the vegetable stew is ready for the winter!

Drunk stew from Ireland

A simple, but tasty and satisfying vegetable stew with meat and a slightly beer flavor will turn everyone a little bit Irish. A multicooker will significantly help reduce time in the kitchen.

• Meat - 0.6 kg;
• Potatoes - 6 pcs;
• Carrots - 1 piece;
• Celery - 3 stalks;
• Leek - 1 piece;
• Beer - 0.5 l;
• Peppercorns - 5 pcs;
• Salt - to taste.

Ideally, for a vegetable stew with meat in an Irish slow cooker to be close to the original, you should take lamb, but you can safely replace it with beef. And for simmering the dish, dark beer is best suited.

Cut the meat into large pieces. Fry it in a hot frying pan to form a small crust, then transfer it to the multicooker bowl.

Cut the carrots, leeks and celery into slices, but not very thin. Add vegetables to meat. Salt and pepper everything. Pour beer and cook for 40 minutes on the “stew” mode.

Potatoes are cut into large pieces and added to the slow cooker. Simmer the stew until the potatoes are completely cooked.

Spanish flamenco with pisto

Pisto is a traditional vegetarian dish in Spain. The recipe for vegetable stew with zucchini is completely simple. And the advantage of this dish is that it is wonderful in all its manifestations: it is served as an independent dish and as a side dish, consumed hot and cold. You can also cook this vegetable stew in a slow cooker or in the traditional way.

• Zucchini - 2 pcs;
• Pepper - 2 pcs;
• Tomato - 1 kg;
• Onion - 1 piece;
• Sugar - ½ teaspoon;
• Salt, pepper - to taste.

It is best to take peppers in different colors. Peel the peppers from seeds and cut into half rings. Also chop the onion. Fry vegetables in olive oil in a hot frying pan. When the peppers become soft, add sugar.

Cut the zucchini into slices. Peel the tomatoes and finely chop. Fry the zucchini and tomatoes in a separate frying pan until cooked.

Mix all the vegetables in one pan, add salt and spices to taste. Simmer over low heat for 2-3 minutes. If there is excess liquid, do not cover with a lid.

Bell pepper - the highlight of the program

Bulgarian housewives cook hearty and uncomplicated meals. This vegetable stew recipe contains a minimum of ingredients: minced meat and potatoes. Of course, bright bell pepper adds piquancy and beauty to the dish.

• Potatoes - 5 pcs;
• Bell pepper - 1 piece;
• Minced meat - 300 gr;
• Greens, salt, pepper - to taste.

If you want to get an unusual dish, then 1 large red bell pepper can be replaced with 2 pieces. medium size, different colors. It is best to use mixed minced meat: pork and beef.

Remove seeds and membranes from peppers. Cut it into large cubes. Chop medium-sized potatoes in the same way as peppers.

Fry the minced meat in a deep frying pan for about 8 minutes. Then add prepared vegetables to it. Stir and continue to fry everything for another 5-7 minutes.

Finely chop a bunch of greens and add to the dish. Season with pepper and salt to taste. Pour 300-400 ml of water into the stew and simmer everything for about half an hour over low heat. To prevent the vegetable stew with minced meat from burning, it must be stirred periodically.

Traditions of Ukrainian Cossacks

For strength, agility and endurance, the Zaporozhye Cossacks have long used healthy and satisfying dishes in their diet, in particular, vegetable stews. The main ingredient in it after potatoes is a large amount of meat products. How to cook such a vegetable stew with meat to please the man you love? Simply and easily!

• Potatoes - 10 pcs;
• Carrots - 2 pcs;
• Garlic - 2 cloves;
• Pork brisket - 300 g;
• Beef - 300 gr;
• Smoked undercut – 300 g;
• Smoked pork ribs - 200 g;
• Salt, pepper, bay leaf - to taste.

Chop the carrots into medium-thick strips. Cut the potatoes into large pieces.

Cut the brisket, beef and pork chops into cubes. Trim the meat from the pork ribs.

In a hot frying pan, fry raw meat in vegetable oil. Season well with salt and pepper. After 3-5 minutes, add the undercuts and carrots to it. After another 2 minutes, add the ribs. Fry everything constantly stirring.

Place everything in a baking dish in layers: meat, potatoes, meat, potatoes. Salt each layer of potatoes and cover with a bay leaf.

Add a little broth or water to the bowl. Add a few peppercorns.

Cook the vegetable stew in the oven for at least 40 minutes at 200 C. Check the readiness by checking the potatoes.

Pass the garlic through a press. Add it 10 minutes before the end of cooking and mix gently. Vegetable stew with Cossack potatoes should sit for a while under the lid before serving.

Delicious homemade stew

Perhaps the most common, familiar and native dish for the Slavs will be vegetable stew with cabbage and potatoes. Such an ordinary, but healthy and tasty dish should definitely be present at the family table. And what’s remarkable: different cuts of food do not affect the taste of the dish in any way.

• Potatoes - 4 pcs;
• Cabbage - 300 gr;
• Tomatoes - 7 pcs;
• Carrots - 1 piece;
• Zucchini - 250 gr;
• Onion - 1 piece;
• Salt, pepper - to taste.

Chop white cabbage into strips. Cut potatoes and zucchini into medium cubes.

Chop the onion into half rings and grate the carrots on a coarse grater. Chop the tomatoes into large pieces.

Place in a saucepan in layers: potatoes, and carrots and cabbage on top. Pour a little water over the vegetables so that it just covers the bottom layer - the potatoes. Simmer covered for 5-6 minutes.

Add tomatoes and zucchini. If necessary, add water. Add salt to taste and continue simmering for another 3-4 minutes.

Fry the onion until golden brown. Sprinkle it over the vegetables. Continue simmering until the dish is completely cooked.

2 recipes

This simple, tasty and practical dish has many names. We have this vegetable stew, in France it is called ratatouille, in Spanish cuisine - pisto, and in Italian - caponata, etc. But, despite the different names and slight variations in the recipe, they have one thing in common - this is a dish of stewed vegetables, which can be prepared with or without the addition of sauce.

The main secret of a delicious stew is to roast all the vegetables separately. But there is not always time for this, and in this case the vegetables take much more oil, which in many cases is simply not acceptable. Of course, you can chop and stew all the vegetables at the same time, but the taste will be much poorer. I offer my recipe for vegetable stew, practical, tasty and without excess fat.

Ingredients:

(4-6 servings)

• 1 kg. potatoes
• 1 large onion
• 2 carrots
• 1 salad pepper
• 1 zucchini
• 2 ripe tomatoes
• ground black pepper
• vegetable oil
• greenery

• So, simmer the finely chopped onion over low heat in a small amount of vegetable oil. Onions can be cut into rings or into squares, it’s a matter of taste and preference.

• When the onion becomes soft and transparent, add finely chopped or grated carrots to it. For vegetable stew with potatoes, I like the second option better. Simmer the carrots until half cooked.

• Then add chopped lettuce peppers, which we also fry a little along with the vegetables. You can use canned peppers instead of fresh salad peppers.

• We peel and cut the potatoes.

• You can proceed further in two ways. Potatoes can be fried separately until half cooked, then the vegetable stew is obtained with whole potatoes, and not with boiled ones.

• But I prefer it when the potatoes are boiled and the soup is thick. In this case, we stew the potatoes together with vegetables without pre-frying.
• To make the potatoes bloom better, we use a “special” cut. To do this, take the potato in one hand, use a sharp knife to make a deep cut with the other, but not all the way, and then break off a piece. This produces a characteristic “clack”. It is in the places of “broken spots” that the potatoes “bloom”, giving the vegetable stew a special tenderness. You can see how to make a special incision.
• Combine stewed vegetables and potatoes (fried or with a special cut).
• Add the diced zucchini. It is clear that the younger the zucchini and the more tender its peel, the better. If the peel is thick, cut it off without regret. Lightly fry.
• Lastly, add the coarsely grated tomatoes. You can replace them with tomato sauce; tomato paste is not advisable. Add a little water to lightly cover the potatoes. Salt.
• Simmer all the vegetables under the lid for 20-25 minutes. Stir the stew from time to time. A couple of minutes before the end, add finely chopped herbs, spices, and you can also add a couple of cloves of chopped garlic.
• Turn off the fire. Be sure to allow at least half an hour for our potato stew to steep a little.

Vegetable stew with potatoes and cabbage

I offer another recipe for vegetable stew with potatoes. This stew is ready in just 30 minutes! Those who are short on time will appreciate this dish - fast, tasty and beautiful!

With vegetables. It's easy to prepare. The ingredients can most likely be found in your refrigerator. The dish will be satisfying, but light and low in calories. We offer a recipe for meat stew with vegetables.

Method one

For this recipe use:

• beef pulp (better veal, it is softer) - 400-500 g;
• several medium-sized tomatoes;
• 1 zucchini (can be replaced with zucchini);
• 1 eggplant;
• 2 medium-sized sweet peppers;
• about 100 g of green beans (green beans);
• several small onions;
• 2 cloves of garlic;
• (your choice);
• oil (olive or regular vegetable);
• vegetable broth (or plain water) - a glass;
• salt and pepper.

Cooking meat stew with vegetables

If you use any of the vegetables frozen, it is better to let them defrost. At this time, you need to prepare the remaining products. Peel the eggplant and sprinkle with salt to remove the bitterness. Then remove the excess salt and add it to the cubes. Rinse the meat if necessary, cut into small pieces. Chop the onion. Heat the oil, throw the meat into it, after 10-15 minutes of frying, add the onion. Zucchini, if it is young, does not need to be peeled. Cut it into cubes. Tomatoes and peppers - into small slices. As soon as the meat and onions are fried, add vegetables to them: beans, peppers, tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant. Cover the dish with herbs (you can take basil, cilantro, parsley) and garlic. Add salt and black pepper. Add hot water to vegetables or (you can use meat). Cover the pan with a lid and simmer for about 40 minutes. Set the heat to slightly lower than medium so that the broth does not evaporate.

Method two

Now let's cook with vegetables. Use:

• lean piece of pork weighing about 500 g;
• half a kilo of potatoes;
• carrots and onions - 1 pc.;
• bell pepper and white cabbage;
• oil (sunflower or olive) about 100 g;
• bay leaf, salt, hot pepper, peppercorns and ground, herbs;
• half a liter of water.

Preparation

Start cooking meat stew with vegetables. First of all, cut the meat into small pieces. Pour the indicated volume of oil into a deep frying pan or saucepan with a thick bottom. Fry the meat in it until golden brown. Cut the carrots into thin strips or chop them on a special grater. Add to meat. Cut the potatoes into cubes and immediately place them in the pan. Let it stew with meat and carrots. Chop the onion and bell pepper and add them to the rest of the ingredients. Reduce heat, add salt and ground pepper. Pour water into the vegetables. Now it's time to plant the cabbage. First you need to chop it into small pieces. Place bay leaf, peppercorns, and capsicum on top of the cabbage (you don’t have to cut it). Simmer everything over low heat. Stir the products periodically. Monitor the liquid level; if suddenly the vegetables begin to burn, add a little water. Readiness can be determined by the softness of the ingredients. At the end, taste the dish for salt and pepper. Cooking time takes approximately 50 minutes. For flavor, you can add chopped garlic to meat stew with vegetables. Sprinkle the finished dish with chopped herbs and serve.

Vegetable stew can be prepared at any time of the year, but it is in the summer that it acquires that special taste that can be called “fresh”. In addition, freshly picked vegetables also contain the maximum amount of vitamins that are so necessary for our health. So let's not hesitate! We urgently go to the garden or market and to the stove to cook a delicious stew!

A few words about the stew

Vegetable stew was born after the classic one, consisting of meat ingredients. The French dish “to whet the appetite” had several prototypes in the culture of ancient civilizations, but its modern version has come to us precisely in the European format.

Stew, as a dish, requires many components. It consists of small, pre-fried pieces of different types of food, combined together and stewed in a thick, delicious sauce. Vegetable stew is prepared from both fresh (summer) and canned (winter) vegetables. In the warm season, a lot of fresh herbs are put into this dish, and closer to autumn, mushrooms begin to appear in it.

Secrets of cooking stew

A delicious vegetable stew is prepared from two or three types of vegetables, combined with each other either in equal proportions, or so that one is the leading one, and the rest are accompanying, helping the taste to reveal itself.

Each vegetable has its own density, which affects its cooking time. “Dense” potatoes and carrots are put into the stew first, and only then are the softer, quickly stewed vegetables. It is customary to add onions at the beginning, garlic and cheese a minute before the dish is ready.

When choosing spices for stews, you need to take into account the compatibility of the latter with certain types of vegetables: for example, basil is best suited to tomatoes, cumin - to cabbage, garlic - to eggplants. Fresh herbs and peppers harmonize well with all vegetables.

The aesthetic side of the issue in preparing stew is no less important than the taste. Do you want the finished dish to look beautiful? Cut vegetables into pieces of the same size and shape.

Vegetable stew can be prepared in two ways:

1. Collect all the vegetables together in a ceramic dish or pan with thick walls and simmer them either on the stove or in the oven (the latter option is preferable, as it allows you to get a more delicious stew).

2. Fry each type of vegetable separately, then do the same as indicated in point one.

Delicious recipes for vegetable stew include both classic Russian dishes and those that are loved in other countries of the world.

Potato stew

№1. Cut four potatoes, two small carrots and one onion into slices, fry, then pour in tomato sauce and simmer for twenty minutes. As soon as the stew is almost ready, add one hundred to one hundred and fifty grams of green peas, salt and black pepper. Before serving, sprinkle the dish with finely chopped dill or parsley.

№2. Cut one kilogram of potatoes into cubes and fry. Add to it two finely chopped onions, six hundred grams of diced eggplant, two red bell peppers and fry again. Add one tablespoon of fresh oregano, three cloves of garlic, salt and pepper to the stew. Boil six hundred grams of tomatoes for one minute, remove the skin, chop coarsely and add to the stew. Mix everything thoroughly and bake in the oven for forty-five minutes. Decorate the finished dish with one bunch of finely chopped parsley.

№3. Cut five hundred grams of potatoes into large cubes and cook until half cooked. Cut three hundred and fifty grams of champignons and one onion into pieces and fry in vegetable oil. Mix potatoes with broth, mushrooms, onions, two hundred grams of shredded white cabbage, one carrot, salt and pepper in one pan. Simmer for five to ten minutes. Serve with chopped fresh herbs.

Cabbage stew

№1. Soak twenty grams of dried mushrooms in warm water, then cook in it for about thirty minutes. Cut one and a half kilograms of kohlrabi into cubes and cook for ten minutes in salted water. Mix together one tablespoon of wheat flour sautéed in butter, five tablespoons of dry white wine, two hundred grams of mushroom broth, two hundred grams of heavy cream and four hundred grams of cabbage broth. Cook the resulting mass for ten minutes, stirring continuously. Add mushrooms and kohlrabi to the prepared sauce, add salt, pepper and one and a half tablespoons of chopped chervil and cook over low heat for five minutes. Sprinkle the finished dish with one tablespoon of chervil.

№2. Boil the leaves of one head of cabbage in salted water and place on a greased baking sheet. In them we put a rice mass prepared from lightly fried two or three onions, one hundred and fifty grams of boiled and also a little fried rice, several chopped eggs (to taste), fifty grams of grated cheese, salt, black pepper and parsley. Cover the rice mixture with cabbage leaves. Fill the baking tray with the stew with hot water and put it in the oven. As soon as the dish is almost ready, fill it with eggs beaten with fifty grams of grated cheese.

№3 . Cut five hundred grams of cauliflower into inflorescences and cook in salted water until half cooked. Fry one head of finely chopped onion and a small carrot in vegetable oil. Add four coarsely chopped tomatoes to them and simmer for five minutes. Fill the stew with vegetable broth, put two diced potatoes in it and simmer under the lid for ten to fifteen minutes. Before the end of cooking, add cauliflower, ground coriander, pepper to the stew and simmer until the potatoes are ready.

Zucchini stew

Peel three hundred grams of zucchini, cut into cubes, fry in vegetable oil until golden brown and transfer to a saucepan. In the remaining oil, fry one head of finely chopped onion and two tomatoes, divided into slices, then combine them with zucchini. Add one hundred and fifty grams of finely shredded cabbage, add a small amount of water and simmer until the vegetables soften. In the almost finished stew, add one hundred and fifty grams of sour cream, add salt and simmer for five to ten minutes.

Eggplant stew

In one tablespoon of butter, fry one chopped onion, mixed with one clove of chopped garlic. Add to the container three bell peppers cut into rings, three eggplants cut into cubes, three zucchini cut into slices, divided into eight slices each, four tomatoes, black pepper and bay leaf. Simmer the stew over low heat. Bake the prepared vegetable mass in the oven, sprinkling it with one hundred grams of grated cheese.

Chanfotta (Sicilian stew)

In a large saucepan, fry one onion, one stalk of celery and basil for two minutes. Add seven hundred grams of pureed tomatoes to them, mix thoroughly and bring to a boil. We put seven hundred grams of diced potatoes, two eggplants and two zucchini into the stew. Salt, pepper, simmer over low heat for twenty minutes. Add seven hundred grams of yellow bell pepper and simmer for another five to ten minutes.

Vegetable stew with coconut milk

For five minutes over low heat in three hundred milliliters of water, cook two hundred and thirty grams of potatoes, one hundred and fifty grams of carrots and one hundred and twenty grams of green beans (potatoes and carrots are best cut into large cubes - five centimeters each). Add diced eggplant to the vegetables, pour two hundred grams of coconut milk into the stew, add salt, bring to a boil and simmer over low heat for five to seven minutes. Fry six curry leaves, seeded and finely chopped dried chili peppers, one teaspoon of cumin, one teaspoon of coriander and half a teaspoon of turmeric in olive oil for twenty seconds. Mix spices with vegetables. The stew is ready.

Indian vegetable stew

In one tablespoon of vegetable oil, fry one small, finely chopped onion until golden brown. Add a crushed clove of garlic to it, fry for another minute, then add one teaspoon of cumin seeds, a quarter teaspoon of chili powder, the same amount of turmeric and salt (to taste). Mix everything thoroughly. Add one green chili pepper and four diced boiled beets to the stew. Fry the vegetable mixture for two minutes. Add three chopped carrots to the stew and fry for another five minutes. Pour one glass of coconut milk over the vegetables and bring to a boil. Serve the finished dish with fresh herbs.