Bethany's Vegan Kitchen

This combines meat free meatballs and creamy butter beans, in a rich, smoky tomato based stew. It’s hearty and filling, so it’s perfect to warm up with on a chilly evening. I chose to serve this with white rice, you could also simply serve it with slices of crusty bread. The smoked paprika adds a lovely smoky flavour to this stew, and the red onion, carrot and red pepper add a natural sweetness

Yield; Four servings Cook time; 45 minutes

You’ll need;

1. One tablespoon of oil
2. One red onion, finely diced
3. One small carrot, peeled and finely diced
4. Two sticks of celery, finely diced
5. One red pepper, deseeded and chopped
6. Two cloves of garlic, minced
7. Two tablespoons of tomato puree
8. Two 400g tins of tomatoes, blended until smooth
9. 150ml hot vegetable stock
10. Seasoning mix; two teaspoons of smoked paprika, two teaspoons of dried oregano, one teaspoon of parsley, salt and black pepper to taste
11. 300g cooked butter beans, this is roughly one and one third of a tin of butter beans
12. 12 meat free meatballs, I used Wicked Kitchen Italian inspired amazeballs, but any meat free meatballs should work well for this

Method;

• Start by heating the oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Once it’s warmed up, add in the red onion, carrot and celery. Sprinkle over a pinch of salt and give them 10 minutes to cook, stirring every now and then
• Next add in the red pepper and garlic, give them a good mix through and give them five minutes to cook with the rest of the vegetables, stirring occasionally
• Now add the tomato puree and give it five minutes to cook off with vegetables, then add the tomatoes, stock, herbs and smoked paprika. Cover the frying pan with a lid and allow the sauce to simmer for 15 minutes, stirring every now and then
• Finally cook the meatballs as per the instructions on the packet. I cooked 12 frozen Wicked Kitchen meatballs in the air fryer at 180°C for 16 minutes. Once they’re cooked add them into the stew along with the butter beans
• Give the beans five minutes to heat through, check the stew for seasoning and add more salt and pepper if needed, then serve

This would be perfect served with slices of crusty bread, or to make it a more substantial meal, serve it with rice or potatoes

As I mentioned, I used meatballs by Wicked Kitchen. But there are so many different plant based meatballs available now, so I would recommend using your favourite. Cooking the meatballs in the air fryer worked really well, so Id definitely recommend giving that a try if you have one

I chose to cook dried butter beans for this recipe, as I prefer them over tinned butter beans. If you’d like to cook dried butter beans for this, I have a blog post explaining how I cook mine HERE. If you would prefer to use tinned butter beans, I would use one and one third of a tin. Be sure to give them a good rinse in plenty of cold water before adding them to the stew