Spicy Berbere seasonings makes for a beautifully earthy and lively bean stew that is sure to add some zest to your life.  This quick and easy Spicy Berbere Bean Stew recipe is packed with flavor and is amazingly delicious. Spicy, slightly sweet, and earthy – YUM!  The best part is that it comes together SO fast.  A fabulous Whole Food Plant Based recipe. Vegan, oil free, refined sugar free, gluten free, no highly processed ingredients.

Ameera here!

I love spicy foods, the spicier, the better.  Experimenting with all types of foods and spices to create new recipes that I think our readers would love is a creative outlet that I really enjoy.  Mom loves to experiment too!

Ethiopian Cuisine

A couple years ago, my brother, Chris, and his wife, Katie, introduced Mom and me to Ethiopian food.  There is an Ethiopian restaurant near their home.  One day Chris and Katie ordered take-out from there as Ethiopian food is typically gluten free.  I tried the food, and I have been in love ever since.

I can’t get enough of their amazing spice blends and creative ways to cook vegetables.  Trust me, you will be seeing a lot of beautiful Ethiopian recipes in the near future.  It is THAT good! I am hooked.

If you haven’t tried Ethiopian food before, you should totally try it.  This recipe is an excellent starter recipe as it is a nod to the Ethiopian cuisine.

This post contains affiliate links, and I may receive a very small commission if you purchase through those links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures! For more information, see our disclosures here.

Berbere Spice

I love Berbere Spice.  Berbere spice is actually a spice blend, consisting of fenugreek, chilies, paprika, ginger, onion powder, cardamom, coriander, nutmeg, garlic powder, cloves, cinnamon, and allspice.

You can make your own, but I LOVE Penzeys’ Berbere spice.  It is so gosh-darn good.  You can purchase Berbere spice directly from Penzeys, or from Amazon, or you can use any brand of Berbere spice you find locally.  I have seen Berbere spice at a few grocery stores, but not every store carries it.

Injera bread

Ethiopian foods are often accompanied by injera.  Injera is kind of hard to describe.  Mom said it looks like carpet padding.  LOL   The first time she tried injera, she just couldn’t get past the texture.  Injera is like a big spongy pancake-like bread made with teff flour.

It is often used like a pita bread.  You tear off pieces and scoop up the food with it and pop it in your mouth.  No utensils required.

Injera bread is very soft and sponge-like.  It has a very distinct sour flavor to it as it is made with fermented dough.  I absolutely love it!  But unfortunately, I didn’t have time to make injera.  It requires an overnight fermenting and it is a little more work than I want to do.

So, we made our traditional quinoa flatbread and added teff flour to it.  You only get the tiniest hint of the teff flavor, but it is delicious all the same.

Hi! Robin here.

Monkey is right, the first time I tried Ethiopian food, I loved the food.  It is so delicious, but couldn’t get past the texture of the injera.  It was so foreign to me.  It reminded me of a spongy carpet pad.  You know, the padding placed underneath carpet?  LOL

Another try!

The next time we visited Chris and Katie, we ordered Ethiopian food again, and I gave the injera another try and guess what?  I loved it!  It made eating the Ethiopian food, which I already loved, that much more enjoyable.  The spices and cooked vegetables are delightfully fragrant and just so gosh darn delicious.

Whole Food Plant Based Perfection

Ethiopian stews really lend themselves to the Whole Food Plant Based diet because the stews are typically all vegetables and vegan.  We removed the oil and we were in berbere stew heaven!  TP109 loved it.  He is not a huge chickpea fan, but he said he absolutely loved the stew.  He used pita bread to scoop his up.

We hope you give this recipe a try.  It is spicy, flavorful, and WFPB goodness at its best!

Products used:

• Ceramic/enamel lined Dutch oven or large kitchen stock pot
• Immersion blender

Spicy Berbere Bean Stew

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• Author: Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures
• Prep Time: 10 minutes
• Cook Time: 30 minutes
• Total Time: 40 minutes
• Yield: 6 Servings 1x
• Category: Dinner
• Method: Stovetop

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Description

Spicy Berbere seasonings makes for a beautifully earthy and lively bean stew that is sure to add some zest to your life.  This quick and easy Spicy Berbere Bean Stew recipe is packed with flavor and is amazingly delicious. Spicy, slightly sweet, and earthy – YUM!

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Ingredients

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Berbere Bean Stew Ingredients:

• 3 – [ 15 oz. cans ] chickpeas (garbanzo beans), drained and rinsed or 2 cups dry – then pressure cooked (divided), – approx. 5 cups of chickpeas in total
• 1 large yellow onion, finely diced
• 1 red bell pepper, finely diced
• 3 garlic cloves, finely minced
• 1 – [ 28 oz. can ] tomato puree
• 2 ½ cups water (or broth) (put the water in the empty tomato puree can to ensure you get all the tomato puree flavor rinsed into the water)
• 3 Tablespoons tomato paste
• ¼ teaspoon, up to 1 Tablespoon 100% pure maple syrup (see recipe notes)
• ½ to 1 teaspoon Berbere spice (see recipe notes)
• 2 teaspoons chili powder
• 2 teaspoons smoked paprika
• ½ teaspoon cumin
• ¼ teaspoon coriander
• Large pinch cayenne pepper (+/- to taste) (see recipe notes)
• 2 teaspoons sea salt (+/- to taste)
• ¼ teaspoon freshly cracked pepper (+/- to taste)
• 1 bunch of organic red chard (swiss chard, escarole, or baby spinach)

Additional Serving Items (Optional)

• Pita bread
• Rice
• Quinoa
• Quinoa bread
• Injera bread

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Instructions

1. In a large ceramic or enamel lined Dutch oven or similar stock pot, add the diced onion and red bell pepper, sauté until they begin to soften, approx. 3 to 4 minutes.
2. Next add the minced garlic and sauté for 1 minute.
3. Then add all the remaining ingredients into the pot except the chickpeas and chard.
4. Bring to a boil, then immediately lower to a simmer. Simmer for 5 minutes.
5. After 5 minutes, add 4 cups of the cooked chickpeas (or canned) and keeping one cup reserved. Simmer for 10 minutes. (If using canned chickpeas, you may have to cook for 14 to 17 minutes to soften the outer shell.  Canned chickpeas tend to have a harder shell than chickpeas processed in a pressure cooker).
6. After 10 minutes, taken an immersion blender and partially break up some of the chickpeas. Do not over-process. The result should be some partially chopped chickpeas and some completely broken down. You want texture, not mush. Stir well to combine.
7. Taste test the flavor. Add more spices and/or more maple syrup (if you started with ½ teaspoon of maple syrup) to achieve the desired spice blend and flavors.
8. Then, add the chard and remaining whole chick peas and cook approx. 5 to 10 minutes more. Note:  The chickpeas should be varied, some broken down completely making the stew thick, some partial chickpea fragments, and finally the whole chickpeas (garbanzo beans) added in this step.
9. Enjoy!

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Notes

*Serving: The beauty of this dish is the diverse serving options.  It can be served over rice or quinoa.  The traditional serving style is to break off pieces of pita bread or injera bread and use the bread as tongs.  In other words, break off a piece of pita (or other bread) and pinch up some stew between the bread with your fingers, and pop it in your mouth.  No utensils required. We love using the quinoa flatbread as a stew scooper.

*Maple Syrup Amount:  The sweetness of this stew is purely personal taste.  We have made this stew a ton of times with varying degrees of sweetness (or lack thereof).  We have found that some prefer a sweeter flavor, while others want little to no sweetness.  We suggest starting with ¼ teaspoon of maple syrup (to remove any acidic flavor from the tomato puree), and increasing it by ¼ teaspoon until the desired level of sweetness (or lack thereof is achieved) up to 1 Tablespoon.

*Berbere Spice Amount:  The amount of Berbere spice (heat) is purely personal taste as well as what Berbere spice blend brand you have.  We suggest starting with ½ teaspoon and increasing it by ¼ teaspoon until the level of spice is achieved.  Some may enjoy up to a Tablespoon or more of  Berbere spice.

*Cayenne Pepper Amount:  The amount of Cayenne Pepper (heat) is purely personal taste as well.  We suggest starting with a large pinch and increasing it by small pinches until the level of heat is achieved.  Make sure you do not add too much to begin with as you want the spices to marry before you begin to add more.

Storage:  Cool to warm and refrigerate.  Use within one week.

This post contains affiliate links, and I may receive a very small commission if you purchase through those links at no additional cost to you. Thank you for supporting Monkey and Me Kitchen Adventures! For more information, see our disclosures here.