Brunswick Stew

Its not often you get to use BBQ sauce in a stew, but this traditional southern stew stew is made with this as well as a combination of meats and a variety of vegetables giving it a very unique flavor. Its a great way to make use of leftover meat from a weekend of smoking or grilling.

The origin of this recipe remains shrouded in mystery although people do have their theroies about where it was created. This is actually a controversial subject in the south. People from Virginia claim it was created in Brunswick County, Virginia but if you ask anyoen from Georgia they will claim it was created in the town of Brunswick, Georgia. Both states have their own variations of the recipe that are unique to each location. The only thing I know for sure is that it tastes amazing.

This stew used to be cooked using small game such as squirrel, rabbit, and possum. More recently people use a variety of chicken, pork, and brisket to create this dish which makes it a great way to use up leftovers from a weekend bbq.

The great thing about this recipe is that it is so versatile. My recipe calls for left over pulled pork, brisket, and smoked chicken, but if you dont have some or any of these on hand there are alternatives for them all. There are also a bunch of options for the vegetables. I have heard this recipe also referred to as BBQ stew. I think of it as BBQ chili because just like chili you can make this recipe with a different variety of ingredients each time and it is still going to turn out amazing.

Cooking Basics

There are not too many steps involved in preparing this recipe. Chopping up the different meats you will use and the vegetables is mnost of it. Once this is done you are really just mixing things in the pot and letting it cook.

Final Thoughts

• Alternatives - There are a lot of alternatives you can do for this recipe so I wanted to talk about some of them before we get to the recipe.

Meats - If you dont have all of the kinds of meat that are mentioned in the recipe you can just use more of what you do have and this stew will still taste great. If you really want to have it with a variety though I will go over substitutions for each kind. Brisket - This can be replaces with ground beef or stew beef. If you use stew beef I would double the cooking time of this to help make the meat more tender. Chicken - I used smoked chicken in my recipe but a lot of the verisons of this recipe I see call for chicken thighs. If you dont have any of this just cook up some chicken ahead of time and throw it in. It does not have to be smoked. Pulled Pork - If you don’t have any pulled pork you could use ground pork or chop up some pork chops to use as a substitute. Potatoes - I use potatoes in my recipe but I have seen other variations that call for lima beans instead and still others dont use either of these so if you dont have them don’t worry about it. Vegetables - I have seen variations of this recipe where okra was used or peas as well if you happen to like these. I used some cream corn but if you do not like this you can just stick with whole corn.

By now I think you get the point that you can make this recipe in a number of different ways. If you try out any different variations of this please leave a coment and let me know what you tried and how it turned out.

Recipe