Vegetable Stew Recipe | Vegetable Stew Kerala Style | Easy & Nutritious

Our Vegetable Stew recipe culminates in a delicious preparation that is fragrant and tantalizing, and easy on the palate.  This Veg Stew recipe is believed to have originated in the state of Kerala where it is widely consumed and is sometimes referred to as Kerala vegetable stew.

The veg stew recipe has been adapted from The Bangala Table: Flavors and Recipes from Chettinad” by Sumeet Nair, Meenakshi Meyyappan, with Jill Donenfeld. The book is based on the cuisine of The Bangala, a superb Heritage hotel in the the Chettinad region of Tamil Nadu, rated as the 7^th Best Restaurant in India by Conde Naste Traveler in 2020. If you happen to travel to Tamil Nadu, make a trip to The Bangala in Karaikudi where you can enjoy this Vegetable Stew alongside a myriad of mouth-watering Chettinad delicacies.
 

Our easy recipe for vegetable stew Kerala style yields a creamy and aromatic vegetable stew with the goodness of coconut milk and nourishment from the vegetables.  Since this preparation is widely consumed in Kerala, and appams being the preferred accompaniment to the vegetable stew, it is sometimes called appam stew.
 

This Vegetable Stew is often included in the Onam Sadya spread, which is celebrated to mark the harvest festival in the state of Kerala. The Sadya is a banquet consisting of many vegetarian preparations and it features Vegetable Stew.
 

Tips and Tricks on how to make Stew:

If you’re wondering how to make vegetable stew well, simply follow our vegetable stew Kerala style video which gives you detailed and Yummefy-ed step-by-step instructions. To start with, you need to wait for the cardamoms to plump up and add other ingredients after that. This step makes sure that the extremely fragrant cardamom and cinnamon release their aroma and flavour the oil.

Freshly extracted coconut milk works best for this Kerala veg stew recipe. If you are short on time or do not have access to coconuts then good quality canned coconut milk can be used for this recipe.
 

We have used regular cooking oil for this recipe, but if you like the deep flavour of coconut, you can use coconut oil to make this recipe. For extra nourishment and intensity of flavor in your vegetable stew, you could add vegetable stock instead of water.

If you like the strong and aromatic flavour of curry leaves, you could opt to add them after adding the spices. They bring in another flavour dimension and blend very well with this preparation. You can also use more chillies or omit them completely, depending on your heat-tolerance levels.
 

How to serve Vegetable Stew:

You can garnish your stew with an optional tempering of fried green chillies or curry leaves. At The Bangala, this easy Vegetable Stew is always accompanied by Idiappams or Appams, and is therefore simply known as vegetable stew for appam. That is how we recommend you serve it or, if you prefer, with rice. Our recipe serves four people and forms a part of a larger meal.
 

If you’re plaaning a large lunch or dinner, this simple recipe can easily be doubled or tripled.
 

If you enjoyed making this vegetable stew in your kitchen, you may also like to try your culinary skills by making our:

Flavourful Cashew Nut Stew
Claypot Chicken Stew
Mixed Vegetable Kootu
Avial | Mixed Vegetable Curry Recipe
Fish Moilee
Kerala Chicken fry
Potato 65
Bhindi Masala
Kerala Ghee Rice with California Walnuts

Or try all our Vegetarian Recipes listed right here!