17 Hearty Stew Recipes to Celebrate Sweater Weather

There are many ways to tell a soup from a stew: the ratio of liquid to ingredients, for example, or the size to which said ingredients are cut. But let’s set aside the technicalities for a moment and take a slightly less tangible approach: For starters, soup invites you to throw on a light cardigan and find comfort at the dining room table, while stew prefers you to put on your most obnoxious knits – a turtleneck so chunky you can barely see over it, for example – and settle in next to a roaring fire. If soup suggests you get on with your day, stew wants you to lick your bowl free of its long-simmering sauce, then (please) take the nap you’ve been dreaming of for weeks.

Whether meaty or vegan, complex or as humble as possible, stews offer a kind of extreme comfort that few other dishes can. Here are 17 of our favorites, each worth breaking out your beefiest turtleneck for.