Brunswick Stew Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What was original Brunswick stew made of? ›

Virginia's Early Record of Brunswick Stew

In 1849, the Alexandria Gazette described Brunswick stew as "a genuine South-side dish, composed of squirrels, chicken, a little bacon, and corn and tomatoes."

If your Brunswick Stew ends up being a little bit watery, then there is a solution to help thicken it up. Just as you can do with any soup, you can add a little flour and water, mix it up and then slowly add it to your stew. This should help thicken it up if you happen to add too much liquid.

The difference between Brunswick stew and beef stew is very simple. Beef stew consists of beef, vegetables, tomato sauce, and some seasoning, while Brunswick stew has a very spicy flavour that comes from a combination of BBQ sauce and ketchup, and is made with beef, pork, and chicken.

It's preferable to use fresh corn and butter beans when they are in season. The stew can be refrigerated in an airtight container for up to 5 days or frozen for up to 4 months.

According to the anthropologist Charles Hudson, Southeastern Indians made a stew from hominy and groundhog or squirrel, and also boiled bear and deer meat with fresh corn kernels and squash. Brunswick stew belongs to a family of southern stews, its closest relative perhaps being Kentucky burgoo.

Store any extra Brunswick stew in an airtight container in the refrigerator. It will keep for up to 3 or 4 days. Reheat before serving. Brunswick stew also freezes well.

Serve this Brunswick stew with pickles, coleslaw, or a salad on the side. Don't forget about the cornbread or biscuits. Get creative and serve this with fried okra, hushpuppies, or sautéed spinach.

The history of brunswick stew is often cast as something of a tale of two cities. Brunswick, Georgia, and Brunswick County, Virginia, have long squabbled over who has bragging rights as the birthplace of the hearty soup that's filled with meat and vegetables and thickened by hours of simmering.

If your dish is a little too sweet, try rounding out the sweetness by adding flavors or ingredients that are sour, bitter, or spicy. It may be obvious not to add more sweet ingredients, but you should also stay away from salty ones since they actually bring out the sweetness in food.

How do you deepen the flavor of stew? ›

Enter instant mashed potato flakes. Add a spoonful of potato flakes at the end of cooking time, and it will thicken things right up. You can even use this trick with foods like roast beef or other slow cooked or pressure cooked meats that have flavorful juices that you want to turn into a gravy-like texture.

There is no real wrong answer for your beef stew potatoes — russets or red potatoes will work fine — but Yukon Gold potatoes have the best balance of texture and flavor to complement a meaty stew.

Slow Cooker vs.

While high heat may cook the potatoes and meat quickly, only low, slow cooking can create the tender morsels of meat and flavorful broth that we seek. The stove (hob) will create a thicker broth/gravy for the stew because more liquid will escape during cooking in the form of steam.

Stew is always best re-heated, and overnight shouldn't cause any major issues. I quite often leave that sort of thing overnight because it is too hot to go in the fridge the night I make it.

Brunswick Stew is a great Virginia tradition that goes back to about 1816. First cooked by James (Jimmy) Matthews as a squirrel stew, the recipe as we know it today was pretty much settled between 1816 and 1828 thanks to a fellow named Ned Stith. Both Matthews and Stith lived in Brunswick, VA.

Bumble Bee Foods acquired Castleberry/Snow Brands in December 2005, and Castleberry was shut down by the FDA in 2008. Bost Distributing Company bought the Mrs. Fearnow's Brunswick Stew brand from Bumble Bee in 2007, according to its website.

There were no potatoes or tomatoes yet, so their main vegetable crops were turnips, parsnips, leeks, onions, and cabbage. They would chop all these vegetables into a big cauldron and boil them in whatever broth they could make from stray bones and vegetable scraps.

Fish out all the meats and remove the meat from the bones; this makes the stew a lot easier to eat. Discard the bones. Add all the tomatoes and the potatoes and simmer 30 minutes. Add the beans, corn and okra and simmer another 30 minutes.