Last week when I asked our GSO Facebook followers what recipes you all would like to see on the blog this fall, two top requests quickly emerged: vegetarian recipes and slow cooker recipes.
So your wish is my command — I made you some Slow Cooker Root Vegetable Stew!
I prepped everything this morning, and could hardly wait for the slow cooker to do its work for dinner tonight. This stew turned out to be absolutely delicious, and is a fantastic way to use up some of those seasonal root veggies. You can substitute in whatever your favorite root veggies may be, but I used some butternut squash, sweet potatoes, Yukon potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and onions from my farmers’ market. Then seasoned the stew with some bay leaf, lots of garlic and sage, and finished it off by wilting in some fresh kale. Spectacular! It was all of the goodness of sweet and savory together, and wonderfully hearty and filling without any meat or grains. And if you make it with vegetable stock, this stew is vegetarian and vegan. And the best part is that it was totally simple to throw together. The main work is just chopping up all of your veggies, then your slow cooker will take over and do the rest of the work.
Definitely a simple, comforting and delicious stew that your friends and family will love.
Slow Cooker Root Vegetable Stew
Ingredients
- 1 large white onion OR 2 leeks (white portion only), chopped
- 1 lb. butternut squash, peeled, seeded and chopped
- 1 lb. carrots, peeled and chopped
- 1 lb. parsnips, peeled and chopped
- 1 lb. sweet potatoes, peeled and chopped
- 1 lb. Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and chopped
- 2 celery ribs, stems removed and chopped
- 6 cloves garlic, peeled and thinly sliced
- 3 cups chicken or vegetable broth
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 Tbsp. fresh sage leaves, finely chopped
- 1 tsp. freshly-cracked black pepper
- 1/2 tsp. sea salt
- 2 cups chopped fresh kale
- optional: fried sage leaves for garnish (see note below)
Instructions
- Add first eleven ingredients to a slow-cooker, and carefully stir to combine. Cook on low heat for 6-8 hours, or until the vegetables are tender. Remove bay leaf, and carefully stir in the kale. Let the stew continue cooking for 10 minutes or so until the kale is wilted. Season with additional salt and pepper if need be.
- Serve immediately, with the option to garnish with fried sage leaves or Parmesan cheese.
Notes
Did you make this?Let me know how it turned out in the comments below!
I’ve added a bit more of sweet potato, and in the end put 1 and 1/2 pints in a food processor, added some heavy cream and it was a dream.
A nice easy recipe to use and very tasty, but a couple of comments to improve things for other people. First, it takes a LOT longer than 30 minutes to peel/slice/chop all the vegetables. Allow at least an hour. Second I think it will help to add some cornflour to give the liquid some body as it’s very thin otherwise.
Definitely ‘a have-again’.
This is an excellent base recipe for a slow cooker root veg stew. This person is giving a general guideline, but it is ready for personalizing based on the size of your slow cooker and what vegetables you have around. I once thought of parsnips as “for day 7 of the apocalypse,” but now in December 2020 I am having difficulty finding them. But, as this is a sweet soup, I do need the parsnips to temper that.
It’s hard to go wrong with a slow cooker, so there is a lot of flexibility. But the sage and garlic are wonderful smelling up your home on a cold day, and creating that “essence of meat” many crave when cutting back. I save my herb stems in a bag in the freezer, then add them to a bouquet garni with the bay leaves. That’s just a chefy way of saying I tie them up in a piece of cooking grade cotton so I can fish them out later. You can also freeze your parm rinds and add them to stews (remember to fish it out before serving).
I sometimes don’t want tomato and that is what I like about this recipe. If I could find vegetable stock without tomato I would be a happy camper, but since it’s slow cooking it’s fine. I like to add 1/8 – 1/4 tsp cayenne (also to temper the sweetness) and my family seems to agree. I go on the heavier side of black pepper too because it’s cooking for 8 hours and can handle it. Finally, I add a little cornstarch slurry at the end because this is very brothy and we like a stew. (That and a little butter if I’m feeling decadent, but that is optional lol ;-) This feeds three of us for a couple days, and is best with fresh crusty bread. Good luck all!
I’m about to attempt cooking this on high in the slow cooker instead of on low – if anyone has tried this please let me know! Chef – will this work? Fingers crossed
Did you try it on high heat? If so, did it work and how long did it take?
I love this. My new favorite cold-weather recipe. So easy to prep. I used leftover (already cooked) butternut squash and added it towards the end. The flavors are wonderful. I didnt try the sage garnish or parmesan cheese.
I must have a very small capacity slow cooker because I had to use another pot to cook some of the vegetables. The slow cooker was overflowing, even before I added the potatoes.
Is this something that can be prepped ahead and frozen? I’m not the world’s greatest cook, (or even the best cook in my house, but I am THE cook) and I don’t know what things are okay to freeze ahead and what is a bad idea to freeze.
My husband and I really enjoyed this. A great soup for a cold day. Most of the veggies are on the sweet side, so the soup is fairly sweet. I would also say is that this is a LOT of soup, more like 6-8 servings. For our family of three, half a recipe would have been ample. I made it on the stove as it would not fit in my crockpot and I needed 8 cups of broth to cover the veggies. And there is no way I can chop and peel that many veggies in 1/2 an hour (especially the butternut squash). I added portobella mushrooms and that made a nice addition. I didn’t have kale, but that would’ve been good.
I have a question? Can you cook this on high heat for half the time? Thanks!
Hi there I am just making this for the 1st time and it is my very 1st attempt at using my new Crockpot 3.5l slow cooker. I am rubbish at cooking and live on my own so I don’t tend to make a lot of effort around my meals. I decided I need to lose some weight and wanted to start eating a little better. Ive just had a sneak taste test of the root vegetables after 5 hrs of cooking and it is absolutely amazing!!!! I normally end up throwing a lot of veggies out each week as I can never eat the amount in the bag sizes and I can see already this recipe is going to stop me being so wasteful and help my bank balance along the way. Thank you. It is incredibly tasty!!! I am very impressed!!!