Shop My Pantry: Old Fashioned Meatball Stew in the Slow Cooker

Some days you know before breakfast that dinnertime is going to sneak up on you. I had an early evening meeting on my calendar, and I knew I didn't want to come home afterward and start figuring out what we were going to eat. I wanted something warm and comforting waiting for us.

So, I did one of my favorite things: I shopped my pantry.

I had frozen meatballs in the freezer and started pulling cans from the shelves—potatoes, carrots, green beans, peas, mixed vegetables, mushrooms, diced tomatoes, tomato soup, and beef broth. Looking at everything lined up on the counter, I realized I had the makings of a wonderfully old-fashioned slow cooker meatball stew without making a trip to the grocery store.

And those meals always make me ridiculously happy.

There's something satisfying about making a really good dinner from ingredients you already have. It feels resourceful and a little creative, especially when the result tastes like something that has been simmering on the stove all afternoon.

A Pantry Meal That Tastes Homemade

This isn't a fussy stew, and that's exactly why I like it.

The frozen meatballs do most of the work for you, while the beef broth, tomatoes, tomato soup, Worcestershire sauce, garlic, thyme, and Italian seasoning slowly come together into a rich, savory broth. The potatoes and mushrooms can simmer right along with the meatballs and soak up all that flavor.

There is one little trick, though: don't dump every can into the slow cooker at the beginning.

Most canned vegetables are already fully cooked. If the peas, carrots, green beans, and mixed vegetables spend five or six hours in the slow cooker, you'll lose their texture and end up with very soft vegetables. Instead, I add the sturdier canned vegetables during the last hour and save the peas until almost the very end.

It takes no more effort, but it makes a big difference.

Make It Your Own

The other thing I love about this meatball stew is how flexible it is. Think of my ingredient list as a starting point rather than a set of rules.

No mushrooms? Leave them out. Have corn instead of mixed vegetables? Use it. A few fresh carrots need to be used? Slice them and put them in earlier in the cooking time. You could add onion, celery, another can of tomatoes, or whatever else is hanging around your refrigerator or pantry.

That's really the spirit of this recipe.

Use what you have.

Taste the broth toward the end and adjust the seasonings, too. Canned vegetables, broth, and meatballs can all contain quite a bit of salt, so I prefer adding black pepper and herbs at the beginning and waiting until the end before deciding whether the stew needs additional salt.

If you like your stew broth a little thicker—and I do—you can also stir together two tablespoons each of cornstarch and cold water and add the mixture toward the end. Give it a little time in the slow cooker, and that lovely broth becomes more like a traditional stew gravy.

Dinner Is Waiting

This is exactly the kind of recipe I want tucked away for busy fall and winter days. Ten minutes in the kitchen in the morning can mean walking through the door later to the smell of dinner already cooking.

And isn't that one of life's little pleasures?

Add some crusty bread, biscuits, or crackers and dinner is done. Nothing fancy. Nothing difficult. Just a hot bowl of meatball stew made mostly from things that were already sitting in the pantry.

I call that a very good dinner.

And perhaps the best part is knowing that the next time you look into your pantry and think, There's nothing here to make for dinner, there just might be.

Take another look.