Are Stew and Soup the Same Thing? (2024)

FAQs

Are Stew and Soup the Same Thing? ›

Soup can be completely liquified or it can consist of other elements (like meat and vegetables) that are fully submerged in water, stock, or broth. Stew, meanwhile, is typically "chunkier." It contains just enough liquid to cover the main ingredients.

Another way to look at it: Soup is any combination of ingredients cooked in liquid. Stew is any dish that's prepared by stewing—that is, submerging the ingredients with just enough liquid to cook them through at a simmer in a covered pot for a long time.

Amount of liquid: Soup typically contains more liquid than stew, as it has a higher ratio of liquid to other ingredients, such as meat, vegetables or legumes. Stew usually has just enough liquid to cover the ingredients and has less liquid than soup. Technique: Soup is made by simmering ingredients in liquid uncovered.

A stew is a combination of solid food ingredients that have been cooked in liquid and served in the resultant gravy. Ingredients can include any combination of vegetables and may include meat, especially tougher meats suitable for slow-cooking, such as beef, pork, venison, rabbit, lamb, poultry, sausages, and seafood.

Though many people think of chili as its own category, it is technically just a type of stew, with origins in Tex-Mex cuisine. Chili isn't a soup mostly because it usually is more solid than it is liquid, with most chili recipes containing majority meat and/or vegetables that are simmered in a tomato sauce.

Gumbo is a hearty stew made from combinations of seafood, meat (such as andouille, chicken and ham) or vegetables that's served hot over cooked rice. Gumbo can be thickened with okra, file, or a roux, a French and Creole method of cooking equal parts flour and fat.

Stews are generally thicker than soups, being made up primarily of larger, solid chunks of ingredients. In other words, stews are thicker and chunkier—and always have solid ingredients. Generally speaking, if there is so much liquid that the ingredients are fully submerged, it's a soup.

Stew can also be made with chicken or fish, a healthier option. Root vegetables such as carrots, onion and potatoes are commonly added to stews. Some are simmered until the liquid is reduced and others add a thickening agent for a gravy-like consistency. If you're stewing over what's for dinner, the answer is stew!

Pozole is a super easy and amazingly tasty stew made with pork, dried chiles, and hominy. This recipe for the traditional Mexican stew is a pozole rojo and features red chile peppers. To some, this soup is at its best thanks to the garnishes, which provide balance and flavor in addition to decoration.

Leftovers like curries and stews can either be turned into a soup with the addition of tomatoes and stock for a chunky soup, or blended and mixed with coconut or regular milk to turn it into a smooth soup. Almost any vegetable – cooked or raw – can be turned into a soup.

Why do they call it stew? ›

The root of stew is the Old French estuver, "bathe or stew." Back in the fourteenth century, stew was also a slang word meaning "brothel or bath house." thick stew made of rice and chicken and small game; southern U.S.

Ingredients in a stew can include any combination of vegetables, such as carrots, potatoes, beans, onions, peppers, tomatoes, etc., and frequently with meat, especially tougher meats suitable for moist, slow cooking, such as beef chuck or round.

A potage is a category of thick soups, stews, or porridges, in some of which meat and vegetables are boiled together with water until they form a thick mush. Bisques are heavy cream soups traditionally prepared with shellfish, but can be made with any type of seafood or other base ingredients.

There are soups that don't have chunks in it (think bisque), but coffee is more like a broth. But like I said, if you add ingredients to a broth you end up with a soup, and if it gets chunky enough, it could be a stew.

Dry grains like raw oats are not soup. Cooked oatmeal is soup. Cereal is both soup and not soup.

Stews, bisques and chowders are generally classified as soups, but they don't fit neatly into the two soup categories because they're combinations of both. Stews usually consist of meat and vegetables simmered over a long period of time, making them perfect for cheaper, tougher cuts of meat.

A stew is a combination of larger-cut ingredients like vegetables, meat, or fish that are just barely covered with cooking liquid, and simmered over low heat for a lengthier period of time. While a stew cooks, the liquid reduces significantly, making it much thicker than your average soup.

To keep things short, yes, there are differences in the flavors of soups and stews that rest overnight, but these differences will not make or break your stew. The one exception to this is chili and other acidic and spicy dishes. As these dishes sit their flavor dissipates and loses the brightness it once had.

Simply put, ramen is a Japanese noodle soup, with a combination of a rich flavoured broth, one of a variety of types of noodle and a selection of meats or vegetables, often topped with a boiled egg.

“Yes, there are some minor differences in flavor with soups and stews that have been allowed to rest overnight or longer, though the differences are subtle and difficult to tease apart,” cookbook author J. Kenji López-Alt wrote in Serious Eats.