Soups and Stews

My grandma used to make a version of this dish using pork and showers of Parmesan. I have updated it to include ground chicken and miso for a lighter, late-summer dish with equally deep flavor,  but feel free to use whatever ground meat you prefer. Gently poaching the meatballs is not only faster than roasting, but means none of their flavor is lost to a baking sheet.

Tender, juicy meat! Clingy, glossy sauce!

Gumbo! Sinigang! Risotto!

This pungent, spicy, and garlicky broth is inspired by rasam, a South Indian soup.

A dash of smoky mezcal adds an unexpected layer of complexity to this Mexican influenced stew. Leave the seeds in the jalapeños if you prefer a spicier stew.

This vegetarian Thai curry comes together in about 30 minutes—and you don't need store-bought curry paste to make it. Our streamlined version is fresh-tasting and easy to throw together—just blitz cilantro stems (the most flavorful part of the herb!), ginger, garlic, shallots, and green chiles in a food processor or blender.

This recipe gives off major chicken-soup vibes but is entirely vegetarian—and you don’t have to simmer vegetables or cheese rinds for hours to get there. The lightning-fast broth gets its flavor from caramelized miso and nutritional yeast (a trick we picked up from Bay Area cookbook author and food writer Andrea Nguyen). The gluten-free dumplings are soft on the outside and pleasantly chewy on the inside. 

Hot-and-sour soup inspired this highly nontraditional springtime version. Miso gives just enough body so that you won't need cornstarch to thicken it, and you can use silken tofu or thinly sliced yuba instead of egg for that same silky effect.

Okay, we waited until now to mention that this creamy, earthy, silky rich soup is vegan. Puréeing some of the mushrooms along with cashews adds body that doesn’t compromise on flavor.

This super-savory dish draws inspiration from Taiwanese beef noodle soup, then gilds the lily with a Dutch oven’s worth of sweet, slow-simmered onions.

All the satisfaction of a hearty, rich, bean-based cassoulet with none of the painstaking hours of cooking.

Pancetta, garlic, and jammy slow-cooked tomatoes bring big, concentrated flavor to these brothy clams. 

Coconut milk and lots of zippy aromatics bring life to this creamy cod chowder. 

You’ll want to “gobble” it up—get it!?

Quick, spicy, filling, and made mostly of pantry ingredients, this chili/tortilla soup/frito pie mash-up is calling your name. (Shhh. Listen closely.) 

This soup coaxes big flavors from a short ingredient list. 

This stick-to-your-ribs stew gets heft from creamy white beans and winter squash.

The flavors of this fish are out of control—super spicy, super intense, super delicious.

Every batch of clams will bring a different level of saltiness to this update on linguine with clams, so be sure to taste the broth and add water as needed in case it's too salty.

This rich, warming stew, punctuated by succulent shrimp, juicy hunks of beef, and crisp-tender okra, is one of our favorites from Toni Tipton-Martin’s new cookbook Jubilee.

My cold-weather preparedness plan: Making this obe ata stew recipe from Egunsi Foods founder ‘Yemisi Awosan.

Obe Ata is a Nigerian sauce that incorporates floral habanero chiles and bell peppers. This recipe uses obe ata as the base for a spicy, warming chicken and sweet potato stew. 

Dashi is the fastest route to a savory, slurp-able broth—and there are no loooong simmers or bags of chicken bones necessary.