Stews have been around almost nearly as long as humans have been cooking. All you need is a vessel to hold your ingredients and water and a means of heating that vessel. It can be as simple as a leather bag with stones heated in a fire dropped into it. So stews were almost certainly prepared during the Paleolithic and Neolithic periods, if not earlier. Once you have clay or metal pots you can prepare stews next to or set directly over a fire. Stews are low-maintenance cookery, generally not requiring that the cooking pot be observed continuously. The slow cooking is also ideal for tenderizing tougher cuts of meat (neck, shin, tail etc). As these also tend to be the most flavoursome parts of animals, this also means that stews can be extremely flavourful. Stews also pair well with the local staple: potatoes, rice, bread, yams, cassava etc.

Even in hunter-gatherer societies stews are useful in that the slow cooking can make the most of tough meat and it can be combined with foraged grains, leafy greens, nuts and starchy tubers to yield a flavourful, low maintenance and nutritious meal. With the advent of agriculture almost all grains are amenable to stewing and combining grains and legumes in a stew provides a ready way to gain all the essential amino acids that humans (particularly children) require.

The boiling process of making stews also helps sterilize the ingredients, killing harmful bacteria and viruses. It can also help neutralize harmful chemicals, such as the cyanogenic compounds in bitter cassava and helps reduce bitterness in leafy greens, making the food both safer to eat and more palatable. The addition of flavouring ingredients (fruit, spices, herbs) during the cooking process can also alter the flavours of stews, making them more palatable and more appealing. This is particularly the case when adding components with high umami content (certain fish, seaweed, cruciferous vegetables, beans, soy sauce, mushrooms etc).

It is little wonder that, taken globally, the list of stews presented on this site is a long one.

Some stews border on soups and the definition of whether a dish is a soup or a stew. A good example of this is Welsh cawl which can be served with more liquid as a soup or can be thickened as a stew and served with bread and/or potatoes. Most curries, due to their long, slow cooking and blend of ingredients can also be considered a subtype of stew.

Pretty much every culture on earth has a classic stew that's a major part of its cultural culinary repertoire. I have viewed and collected recipes for many of these on my travels. These and other classic stews from around the world are collected and presented here.

The alphabetical list of all the stew recipes on this site follows, (limited to 100 recipes per page). There are 2595 recipes in total:

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Peri-Peri Chicken with Peri-Peri Rice      Origin: Mozambique	Pisam Farsilem (Pressed Peas)      Origin: Roman	Poisson au Lait de Coco (Fish in Coconut Milk)      Origin: Cote dIvoire
Persian Lentils with Orange Juice and Angelica      Origin: Iran	Pisam Vitellianam sive fabam (Peas or Broad Beans Beans in a Herb Sauce)      Origin: Roman	Poisson Fumé aux Gombos (Smoked Fish with Okra)      Origin: Cameroon
Peruvian Goat Stew      Origin: Peru	Pisca Hasa (Fried Fish)      Origin: Aruba	Poisson Yassa Mauritanienne (Mauritanian Fish Yassa)      Origin: Mauritania
Perys en Composte (Pears in Compote)      Origin: England	Pisca Stoba (Fish Stew)      Origin: Puerto Rico	Poissons en sauce aux arachides (Fish in Groundnut Sauce)      Origin: Gabon
Peson of Almayne (German Peas)      Origin: England	Pisces Zomoteganon II (Fish Stewed in its Own Juice)      Origin: Roman	Pollo Alla Cacciatora (Sammarinese Chicken Cacciatore)      Origin: San Marino
Petit Salé with Winter Root Vegetables and Ceps      Origin: Britain	Pisken Balyk (Boiled Fish)      Origin: Kazakhstan	Pollo Borracho Chileano (Chilean Drunken Chicken)      Origin: Chile
Phaksha Pa      Origin: Bhutan	Pisupo      Origin: Samoa	Pollo con Salsa de Cacahuetes (Chicken with Peanut Sauce)      Origin: Equatorial Guinea
Phaksha Paa (Bhutanese Pork with Chillies)      Origin: Bhutan	Pit Pit in Coconut Cream      Origin: Papua New Guinea	Pollo de Chocolate (Chocolate Chicken)      Origin: Mexico
Phane Stew      Origin: Botswana	Pit Pit in Coconut Cream      Origin: Fiji	Pollo en Salsa      Origin: Costa Rica
Pheasant Stew with Whisky      Origin: Scotland	Pit Pit in Coconut Cream      Origin: Niue	Pollo Guisado (Dominican Stewed Chicken)      Origin: Dominican Republic
Phool gobhi Achari      Origin: India	Pit Pit in Coconut Cream      Origin: Papua	Pollo Guisado (Dominican Chicken Stew)      Origin: Dominican Republic
Picadillo      Origin: Cuba	Pit Pit in Coconut Cream      Origin: Samoa	Pollo Mexicana (Chicken Mexicana)      Origin: Mexico
Picadillo de Vainicas (Green Bean Picadillo)      Origin: Costa Rica	Pit Pit in Coconut Cream      Origin: Tonga	Polvo à São Tomé (Sao Tomean Octopus)      Origin: Sao Tome
Picado à Madeirense (Beef Tips, Madeiran Style)      Origin: Portugal	Pit Pit in Coconut Cream      Origin: Vanuatu	Polvo a Modo ze de Lino (Octopus Stew)      Origin: Cape Verde
Pick a Pepper Soup      Origin: Equatorial Guinea	Pit Pit in Coconut Cream      Origin: Kiribati	Pondu      Origin: Congo
Pied de Veau aux Pois Chiches (Calf's Feet with Chickpeas)      Origin: Burkina Faso	Pit Pit in Coconut Cream      Origin: Federated States Micronesia	Porc aux Choux de Chine (Pork with Chinese Leaf)      Origin: Madagascar
Piezly Mukhat (Chickpea and Onion Stew)      Origin: Tajikistan	Pit Pit in Coconut Cream      Origin: Cook Islands	Porc Palmiste (Pork with Heart of Palm)      Origin: Reunion
Pig Tail Bouillon with Dumplings      Origin: Saint Lucia	Pit Pit in Coconut Cream      Origin: New Caledonia	Porc Wedi ei Bobi'n Araf (Slow-roast Pork)      Origin: Welsh
Pigeon Breasts      Origin: Scotland	Pit Pit in Coconut Cream      Origin: Wallis Futuna	Pork and Beans      Origin: American
Pigeon Peas and Rice      Origin: Anguilla	Pit Pit in Coconut Cream      Origin: Society Islands	Pork and Yam Pepper Soup      Origin: Nigeria
Pilaf Rizi (Rice Pilaf)      Origin: Cyprus	Pit Pit in Coconut Cream      Origin: Marshall Islands	Pork Black Curry      Origin: Sri Lanka
Pilafi Pourgouri (Crushed Wheat Pilaf)      Origin: Cyprus	Pit Pit in Coconut Cream      Origin: Marquesas Islands	Pork Fing      Origin: Bhutan
Pilao (Comorian Pilau)      Origin: Comoros	Pizza Rustica (Italian Easter Ham Pie)      Origin: Ghana	Pork Fong      Origin: Bhutan
Pilao ou Riz au Poulet (Mahoran Chicken Pilau)      Origin: Mayotte	Plantain and Coconut Soup      Origin: Uganda	Pork Korma      Origin: India
Pilao ou Riz au Poulet (Comorian Chicken Pilau)      Origin: Comoros	Plantain Pilé à la Sauce d'Arachide (Crushed Plantains with Peanut Sauce)      Origin: Cameroon	Pork Paprikash      Origin: Hungary
Pilau Mouton de Comores (Comorian Mutton Pilau)      Origin: Comoros	Plasas (Sierra Leonean Chicken Peanut Stew)      Origin: Sierra Leone	Pork with Cabbage and Bananas      Origin: eSwatini
Pilav Limon (Lemon Pasta Pilaf)      Origin: Georgia	Plat Songhay (Songhay Dish)      Origin: Mali	Pork, Potato and Fennel Casserole      Origin: Ireland
Pink Leg of Lamb      Origin: Turkey	Plat Tradicional Fula (Traditional Fulani Dish)      Origin: Guinea-Bissau	Porkolt Csirke (Chicken Porkolt)      Origin: Hungary
Pinon au Dindon (Pinon with Turkey)      Origin: Togo	Plays in Cynee (Plaice in Spiced Bread Sauce)      Origin: England	Port of Spain Crabs and Dumplings      Origin: Trinidad
Pintade à l'Afrique (African Guinea Fowl)      Origin: Guinea	Plokkfiskur (Icelandic fish stew)      Origin: Iceland	Posna Sarma      Origin: North Macedonia
Pintade de Guinée (Guinean Guineafowl)      Origin: Guinea	Plov S Mindalyom, Izyumom I Apelsinovoy Tsedroy (Fruit Pilaf)      Origin: Georgia	Pot au Feau      Origin: France
Pipián (Chicken in Peanut Sauce)      Origin: Philippines	Point-and-kill      Origin: Nigeria	Pot au Feu      Origin: France
Pisam Adulteram Versatilem (Peas Turnover)      Origin: Roman	Pois d'Angole (Pigeon Peas)      Origin: Guadeloupe
Pisam coques (Peas in Herb Sauce)      Origin: Roman	Poisson au Fúmbwa (Fish with Fumbwa)      Origin: Central African Republic

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