One Pot Root Vegetable Stew (2024)

It’s a snowy, cold week here in Denver, which means I’m craving warming comfort food like this Root Vegetable Stew. It’s packed with delicious, healthy vegetables but is also a wonderfully hearty soup that is all I want on a chilly day.

It’s no surprise that one of the most common New Year’s resolutions is to eat healthier, but whenever I hear that from people I try to convince them to change their resolution to COOK MORE. If you feel comfortable in your kitchen and just spend more time making your food, it’ll be healthier.

This stew, for example, does require some prep work. There’s some serious peeling and chopping, but once you get that done, it’s a simple, one-pot meal.

What is a Ribollita Stew?

I made this root vegetable stew in the style of a classic Ribollita, which is an old-world Italian stew that uses leftover bread to thicken the stew. You can use any leftover bread you have to thicken the stew or buy a nice loaf from your bakery. Sometimes you can even get a good deal on a loaf that’s a few days old, which is perfectly fine for this stew.

• Need another delicious comfort food meal? Try this Braised Apples and Sausage dish or this Squash and Kale Stew!

The Vegetable preparation

As with many recipes, the hardest part of this recipe is just chopping and peeling all the veggies: onions, carrots, celery, parsnips, and beets. If you are trying to make this stew on a weeknight, I recommend doing this part in advance. You could chop this stuff the night before and have it ready.

Just try to get everything roughly the same size. It doesn’t have to be perfect.

Heat a large sturdy pot (like a dutch oven) over medium heat. To make the last part of this recipe easier, it helps if your pot is oven (broiler) safe.

When the oil is hot, add all the chopped veggies and let them cook until they soften (5-6 minutes). Season them with kosher salt and pepper obviously.

Next, add the tomato paste and garlic and stir that into the veggies for 30 seconds. Then add the diced tomatoes and vegetable stock.

Now for two flavor add-ins: a bay leaf and a Parmesan rind! You need a fair amount of Parmesan for the cheese bread toppers for this stew, but if you don’t have a parm rind, you can just leave it out. You can also leave out the parmesan rind if you want to make this a vegan soup.

Bring that mixture to a simmer. It’ll be looking good already!

Finishing the Root Vegetable Stew

Now for the finishing pieces: Kale, white beans, and bread. You can use any bread to thicken this stew, but a good sturdy bread like sourdough is best.

Stirring in these ingredients will give the stew some extra texture and really make it feel like a full meal. It’s much more than a soup appetizer!

The Cheese Bread Toppers

There’s some bread in the ribollita that helps thicken it, but I like to add these to the top of the stew also for an extra touch.

Just cut a few slices of sturdy bread and top them with a good amount of grated Parmesan (maybe 2 tablespoons per piece).

Then preheat the broiler in your oven and nestle the bread pieces in the finished root vegetable stew.

Stick the whole thing under the broiler for 1-2 minutes until the bread is crispy and the cheese browned.

Then you can serve it up!

If you aren’t sure if your pot is broiler-safe, don’t risk it. You can just make the cheese bread toppers on a sheet pan and serve them with the root vegetable stew! The nice thing about broiling them in the stew is 1) less dishes and 2) the bread soaks up some of the stew but gets crispy on top!

If you’re looking for a good way to kick off a healthy year, try cooking more and start with this awesome root vegetable stew!

Here are a few other great recipes to try!

• Beer Braised Beef Stew
• Crockpot African Peanut Stew from Cotter Crunch