Hearty and filling, this vegan stew is brimming with flavor and lots of umami from the earth. Sprouted chickpeas, potatoes and mushrooms come together in a super quick meal thanks to the Instant Pot!
Plant based power in this stew. We love throwing ingredients together to create one bowl meals. As such, stews and soups are always a welcomed approach. Especially with the Instant Pot, making cooking quick and clean up a breeze. Onion, garlic, carrots, celery and potatoes with the hearty flavor of cremini and maitake mushrooms make this stew flavorful and filling. Vegan Worcestershire too adds a rich dimension that pairs lovely with the fresh thyme and rosemary. Vegans and carnivores alike will love this stew!
Have you ever sprouted your legumes? I personally always soak my beans, even though you technically don’t have to in the Instant Pot. The time soaking is well worth the nutritional gains that I will push a meal idea out a day to give my beans time to have a relax in their soaking bath!
Dry seeds are dormant and full of non-nutritive properties like phytic acid. These compounds help keep the seeds sleeping until the conditions are just right to grow, but these compounds also can impact the nutrition of the bean and how our digestive system processes them (….um GASSSSS anyone????)
Soaking a seed ends the dormancy and begins a new life.
In nature this seed will make a plant which can, in turn make seeds, which can in turn make more plants, which…. you know the drill…. makes more seeds then more plants…. and so on and so forth. But when we soak and sprout we eat all this potential. This potential is why sprouts are SO nutritious!
Also note, once a seed has soaked up it’s fill of water, it is now fully alive! It is now a nutritional phenomenon, with its own enzymes. When we consume the sprouts it they take nothing but will only add to your body.
Sprouting chickpeas (also known as garbanzo beans) is easy. All you need to do is soak the chickpeas in filtered clean water overnight. Rinse them the next day and leave in a strainer over a bowl and cover with a clean towel at room temperature. Then rinse, fill and drain them several times a day for about 36- 48 hours depending on the temperature until you see the little tails! Now your garbonzos are sprouted and ready to eat raw or cook in a stew like this or make hummus… treat them just as you would any other chickpea!
Low in fat and calories, chickpea sprouts are high in protein, with a ½ cup of them delivering 10 grams of plant based protein. And sprouting super charges the enzymes and amino acids!
About a half cup of chickpea sprouts will give you three grams of fiber, approximately 45 percent of your daily suggested intake of vitamin C and 16 percent of the daily suggested iron intake. Additionally, garbanzo bean sprouts provide a great source of folate and manganese as well as a good source of potassium, vitamin A, vitamin E, zinc, calcium, magnesium, phosphorus and copper. They also have thiamin, niacin, vitamin B6 and vitamin K.
As with other bean and seed sprouting, the sprouting process increases vitamin C, B vitamins and other vitamin and mineral nutrients, while also neutralizing enzyme inhibitors (phytic acid) found in many seeds and beans that can interfere with normal nutrient absorption.
You can always substitute and use cooked chickpeas or just soaked in this stew recipe, but if you haven’t ever sprouted…. give it a shot! Your gut and your heart will thank you and your tastebuds will never be the wiser.
Sprouted Chickpea and Mushroom Stew
Equipment
- Instant Pot
- food processor
Ingredients
- 2 cups dried chickpeas, soaked and sprouted (4 cups total once soaked)
- 3 cups chopped mushrooms, cremini and maitake, 1/2 inch pieces
- 1 cup chopped celery, 1/2 inch pieces
- ½ cups chopped carrots, 1/2 inch pieces
- 1 cup chopped onion, 1/2 inch pieces
- 3 cloves garlic
- 2 cups chopped unpeeled potatoes, 1/2 inch cubes
- 5-6 cups oil free stock
- 1 cup green peas, frozen
- fresh rosemary
- fresh thyme
- salt and pepper to taste
- 2 tbsp vegan Worcestershire Sauce
- 2 whole medium tomatoes, blended in food processor
Instructions
- Add chopped onion and garlic to Instant Pot on saute medium. Cook and stir letting the onions and garlic brown slightly. Add splashes of veggie stock to deglaze the pot.
- Add celery, carrots, mushrooms, potatoes, and chickpeas to pot. Add veggie stock to cover completely (ensure that your Instant pot is no more than 2/3 full but all ingredients are covered.
- Cook on Chili/Bean setting for 20 minutes, following the Instant Pot directions for safety.
- When done cooking and steam has released, remove lid. Add peas, tomatoes, fresh herbs, salt and pepper and vegan Worcestershire. Stir and change setting to saute and simmer on medium for an additional 30 minutes.
- Serve with fresh parsley or chopped green onion, a side salad, and corn muffins or other whole grain biscuits.
Notes
Nutrition
How long would I cook step 3 for in a conventional stock pot? 1-2hours? (I don’t have an instant pot.)
Hi Natalie! Thanks for checking in! I suggest around 2 hours, depending on if you are using soaked or sprouted beans OR cooked beans from a can. If using cooked, get everything else simmering for about 30-45 minutes, then add the cooked beans for the last hour. Total time simmering about 2 hours. If using soaked or sprouted, add everything together the same as the Instant Pot directions, but save the tomatoes for the last 45 minutes. Adding them in before beans have cooked can cause them to toughen. For both methods though, around 2 hours of simmer should yield a really yummy version! Let me know how it goes so I can add directions to the blog based on how it turns out for you. Happy cooking!
This soup was excellent!! I don’t have an Instant Pot or a Slow cooker so I used an old fashioned stove-top stock pot. I cooked the vegetables for about 40 minutes, probably could have reduce that to 35, and it was perfect. I also substituted half the chickpeas for Fava beans (I just didn’t have enough chickpeas) and it worked great.
Next time I’ll roast the root vegetables (for about 15 minutes-so they’re not completely cooked) before adding them to the pot. I love roasted vegetables in soup. And I might substitute half the potatoes for sweet potatoes. And add beets. I’d roast the beets completely before adding them when you add the tomatoes.
Happy cooking, everyone.
This sounds delicious Natalie! Thank you so much for sharing this great tip and I LOVE the idea of roasting beforehand too. And beets…. BEETS are so good!!! I will have to play with making a beet soup now! 🙂