This is a creamy, cozy and warming vegetable stew made with eggplants and white beans. It is both quick and easy to make, only using simple and easy ingredients and ready to serve in about 30 minutes. Make this eggplant and white bean stew for meal prep purpose, eat it for lunch or have it as a cozy weekend dinner. This eggplant and white bean stew is vegetarian, gluten and grain free and can easily be made vegan.
Making stews is a great way of cooking something easy, quick, when you’re lacking inspiration, need to make a big batch of food, want to eat something cozy or need to do a fridge clean out. I love making everything from a long cooked stew that has had the time to simmer for several hours to bring out most of the flavors and making it incredibly tender and mouth melting to an easy and quick stew made with just a few simple ingredients. This one qualifies to the latter category, but nevertheless it’s still very tasty, flavorful, creamy and delicious! It is a tomato based stew made with eggplant, white beans, zucchini and bell pepper where all vegetables have different tastes and textures. This prevents the stew from feeling and tasting bland and boring. It also has some Creme fraiche in it to make it more creamy and smooth. This stew is great to serve with both rice/cauliflower rice, bulgur, couscous, pasta or quinoa. You can easily make it vegan by using a vegan Creme fraiche.
A few tips:
- I always salt my eggplants and let them rest for at least 30 minutes before cooking/frying/baking them to remove excess water and make them more tender and less spongy. You can skip this step or reduce the time. But I really prefer not to skip this step.
- I used big white beans for this stew, but you can also use chickpeas or cannellini beans for example.
- Use good quality canned tomatoes or canned cherry tomatoes. It is a huge difference when you use good quality tomatoes and the cheaper bland ones.
- If you want to make this stew vegan you can use vegan Creme fraiche.
- This stew is great to serve with rice/cauliflower rice, couscous, bulgur, quinoa or pasta.
Ingredients for this Eggplant & White Bean Stew:
- Rice/Cauliflower rice
- Yellow onion
- Garlic
- Eggplant
- Zucchini
- Red bell pepper
- Paprika powder
- Cumin
- Tomato paste
- White beans
- Vegetable stock cube
- Canned tomatoes/canned cherry tomatoes
- Creme fraiche
- Sea salt
- Black pepper
- Fresh parsley
- Olive oil
Other recipes you might like:
- Baked Eggplant with Tomato, Yogurt & Herb Sauce (Vegetarian, Gluten, Grain Free & Low Carb)
- Grilled Eggplant & Zucchini with Hazelnut Pest & Ricotta (Vegetarian, Gluten, Grain Free & Low Carb)
- Harissa & Honey Roasted Eggplant with Hummus (Vegetarian, Gluten & Grain Free)
- Sweet Potato Halloumi Curry (Vegetarian & Gluten Free)
- Chickpea Curry (Vegetarian, Gluten & Grain Free)
- Lentil Shakshuka (Vegetarian, Gluten & Grain Free)
- Moroccan Chickpea & Eggplant Stew (Vegan, Gluten & Grain Free)
- Lentil Curry (Vegan, Gluten & Grain Free)
Eggplant & White Bean Stew (Vegetarian, Gluten & Grain Free)
Ingredients
- 4 portions Rice or cauliflower rice
- 1 large Yellow onion finely chopped
- 2-3 Garlic cloves minced
- 1 tsp Paprika powder
- 1/2 tsp Cumin
- 1 tbsp Tomato paste
- 2 medium Eggplant diced
- 1 small Zucchini diced
- 1 Red bell pepper sliced
- 500 g White beans drained and rinsed
- 1 Vegetable stock cube
- 500 g Canned tomatoes/cherry tomatoes
- 1- 1 1/2 dl Creme fraiche
- Sea salt, to taste
- Black pepper, to taste
- Fresh parsley, to top
- Olive oil, to fry
Instructions
- Dice the eggplants, place in a bowl and season well with salt. Let them rest for at least 10-15 minutes.
- Cook rice according to instructions or rice your cauliflower in a high speed blender until you have a rice like texture.
- Preheat a big nonstick pan over medium heat with some olive oil.
- Add the chopped onion and fry for 1-2 minutes, until it starts to look translucent. Add the minced garlic and fry for another 1-2 minutes.
- Next add paprika powder and cumin to the pan and stir to combine with the onion and garlic. Let it fry for 1-2 minutes.
- Rinse the eggplants well under water and dry path well using a paper towel. Add to the pan and fry with the spices and onion for 2-3 minutes.
- Next add the red bell pepper and zucchini. Let it all fry for 2-3 minutes, until the vegetables have softened and starting to get golden brown.
- Add tomato paste, fry for 1-2 minutes more.
- Now add the beans, canned tomatoes/cherry tomatoes and vegetable stock cube. Let the sauce simmer for on low heat, until everything is warm.
- Stir in Creme fraiche, taste the sauce and check if more seasoning is needed.
- Place rice/cauliflower rice on plates, add eggplant and bean stew and top with chopped fresh parsley.