Comforting & Cheap Tomato & Roasted Red Pepper Stew with Pesto Butterbean Mash

Sometimes all you need is a quick and easy meal to comfort you after a long day at work. Whilst some of us may be tempted to go for the easy option and get a ready meal, oven pizza or takeaway (me, on more occasions than I can count), it's not the healthiest and certainly not the cheapest means of eating quickly. I firmly believe that if you want to eat healthily, you've got to find meals that you actually enjoy - there's no point in forcing yourself to eat salads if you're miserable whilst doing so!

With that in mind, I'm always on the lookout for healthy recipes that don't sacrifice flavour which are fast and relatively simple to make. I also love using well-known ingredients in new and exciting ways. Plus I'm pretty thrifty (see: stingy) and LOVE a cheap deal. This 30-minute stew with a pesto butterbean mash ticks all of these boxes for me; it's creative with ingredients, it's packed with goodness such as protein, vitamin C, and a load of antioxidants, there's only eight ingredients so it's not over-complicated to make, plus it only costs approximately £1.45 per person (see full breakdown below). And of course, it's tasty!

This dish truly is the ultimate quick-fix comfort food without a load of sodium and unhealthy fats - basically, it's a win-win! Plus, it's vegetarian and gluten-free, and easily made vegan by using dairy-free pesto. Keep reading for a full ingredient list and method, and check out my simple step-by-step guide over on my YouTube channel.

Ingredients:

• One tablespoon of olive, sunflower or vegetable oil

• One to two teaspoons of smoked paprika

• One medium-sized red onion

• One large red pepper

• 400 gram tin of plum or cherry tomatoes - I had a hard time finding tinned cherry tomatoes so used plum instead!

• 200 grams of butterbeans in water (the tin will likely be 400g with a drained weight of around 200g)

• Two to three tablespoons of basil pesto (TIP: if you get hold of a dairy-free version then the whole dish will be vegan-friendly!)

• A splash of sherry or red wine vinegar - if you're making the dairy-free version make sure you check that this is vegan too

• A handful of fresh coriander to garnish

• As always, salt & pepper

Method:

1. Start off by preheating your oven to 200 degrees celcius or gas mark 6

2. Then slice your red pepper lengthways, getting as much as you can out of it so there's only the core and stalk left

3. Next, line a baking tray with greaseproof paper, lay out your sliced red pepper and pop it in the oven for around 15 to 20 minutes

4. Whilst that's cooking, top and tail your red onion, cut it in half and start finely slicing it

5. Add your oil to a large saucepan over a medium heat, then chuck in your onions with a pinch of salt

6. Cook the onions for around five minutes until they're nice and soft - give them the occasional stir

7. Add your paprika into the pan - making sure to stir it in well - then cook for another two minutes

8. Tip in your tinned tomatoes, stir well then leave on a low heat to bubble away

9. Whilst that's simmering, rinse and drain your butterbeans then pop them into a separate saucepan

10. Add about 50 millilitres of water and your basil pesto to the butterbean pan, then stick it on a low heat and use a fork to roughly mash the butterbeans with the pesto (this requires a bit of elbow grease - you may end up with PopEye arms!)

11. By now, your red peppers should be nicely roasted so grab them from the oven and chuck them into the stew saucepan

12. Season this well with salt, pepper & your sherry or red wine vinegar

13. Dish up your butterbean mash, then pile the stew on top and garnish with a few coriander sprigs

14. Enjoy!

As promised, here's the full breakdown of how much this meal costs to make. As usual I'm cooking for two people, so the cost of the meal is equal to two servings. I used ingredient prices from Sainsbury's as that's where I tend to shop at the moment, however I know that many items can be bought for cheaper in supermarkets such as Aldi and Lidl, so if you want to make even better savings maybe you can pay them a visit! Note: obviously you can't buy just two tabelspoons of pesto, so I worked out roughly how much of a jar you would use and worked out the price from there.

• Red onion: 28p

• Red pepper: 45p

• Smoked paprika:11p

• Tinned cherry tomatoes: £1

• Butterbeans: 60p

• Basil pesto: 24p

• Red wine vinegar: 7p

• Coriander: 15p

The overall cost for the meal is about £2.90, making it about £1.45 per person. I think this is great value for money for such a filling and delicious meal - I was actually surprised at how cheap it turned out to be! I think if I were to make any amendments I would perhaps add another tablespoon or two of pesto and add about half of the water as the mash didn't have the same consistency as I'd have expected it to. However, if you want to give this a go I recommend following the recipe above and seeing what you think - it might just be me being overly critical! If you do try this recipe for yourself, why not let me know how it goes in the comments?