Soup, Stew, Chili and Gumbo Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What is the difference between soup stew and chili? ›

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.

Louisiana gumbo is either a soup or a stew depending on your personal tastes, with a soup having a thinner consistency (less viscous) than a stew. In Louisiana, I've not heard it called either. It's just gumbo, a huge favorite down there and just about all around the US.

Soup Uses More Liquid

In soup, the liquid is the primary ingredient. 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.

Gumbo consists primarily of a strongly flavored stock, meat or shellfish (or sometimes both), a thickener, and the Creole "holy trinity" – celery, bell peppers, and onions. Gumbo is often categorized by the type of thickener used, whether okra or filé powder (dried and ground sassafras leaves).

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.

Ultimately, there are still plenty of mixed opinions on chili in the culinary world. Some chefs will tell you it's a soup, while some will argue that it's a stew. However, we've found that the dominant opinion is that chili, in all its spicy glory, is something else entirely.

Thou Shalt Always Use a Bowl. If you use a plate, it is not gumbo it is rice and gravy! Thou Shalt Only Use a Wooden Spoon. There is only one kind of spoon that can enter a gumbo pot and that is a wooden one.

Turns out, your preference for tomatoes in gumbo comes down to whether you learned your skills from a Cajun cook or a Creole cook. (Learn about the difference here.) Cajun gumbo does not include tomatoes in the base, but Creole gumbo (typically shellfish or seafood gumbo) does call for tomatoes.

Creole cooks in Louisiana usually prepare some variation of three basic recipes: a ''Creole gumbo'' that includes sausages, beef, veal, ham, chicken, whole crabs or shrimp and is thickened with roux and file powder; a simpler ''okra gumbo'' thickened with okra and including a variety of shellfish; and a ''gumbo aux ...

Pre-cooking the potatoes is not necessary for most stew recipes. When added raw, the potatoes will absorb the flavors from the stew, creating a rich and delicious taste. However, if you prefer your potatoes to be softer and creamier, you can parboil them for a few minutes before adding them to the stew.

What is a thick stew called? ›

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.

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.

Great gumbo starts with roux, a flavorful thickening agent made from equal parts fat and flour. Once the roux is a deep golden color, add diced veggies and sausage to the mix. Then, incorporate beef bouillon, hot sauce, tomatoes, and seasonings to intensify the flavor.

Love it or hate it, there's no denying that okra can get slimy. The so-called slime is mucilage, which comes from sugar residue and is great for, say, thickening gumbo, but not great when you're biting into a piece of sautéed okra and averse to that viscous texture.

Now, I prefer to grind up my own mix of seasoning (I use Emeril's ESSENCE recipe sometimes) because it keeps the flavour fresher, and I can ease up on the salt in favour of more pepper. Above all else, never add carrots (any recipe that tells you to do so is not an authentic New Orleans gumbo, even if it's delicious).

Chili is a specific kind of stew flavored with chili power, a mixture of various ground dried chiles, cayenne pepper, cumin, garlic powder, paprika, oregano, and onion powder. Meat varies or is optional. A stew is a dish made (usually) with meat or fish, and vegetables, cooked by simmering until done.

Traditionally, chili combines ground or coarse-chopped beef (or other meat), dried red chili powder, onion, garlic, some liquid, and sometimes comino, oregano, beef suet, tomato, and masa (finely ground corn meal) to thicken. Texas-style chili has no beans. Southerners and Midwesterners generally add beans.

Soup is a primarily liquid food, generally served warm or hot (but may be cool or cold), that is made by combining ingredients of meat or vegetables with stock, milk, or water. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling solid ingredients in liquids in a pot until the flavors are extracted, forming a broth.

As Bon Appétit explains, etymologists trace the word stew back to the Old French word estuve, which referred to a cauldron, stove, or heated room. This word was rooted in the Latin extufare, meaning "evaporate," which was in turn borrowed from the Greek word typhos, meaning "smoke."