Guvec - Turkish Lamb Stew

Name: Guvec - Turkish Lamb Stew
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 40 min
Total time: 50 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Turkish
Ingredients: 700g (1.5 lb) diced lamb; 1 tablespoon butter; 10 shallots, peeled; 2 potatoes, sliced into large cubes; 4 green peppers, diced; 2 carrots, diced; 4 cloves garlic, peeled; 2 large tomatoes, diced; ½ teaspoon black pepper; 1 and ½ teaspoons salt; 1 cup hot water; 1 tablespoon tomato paste; 3 sprigs fresh thyme or oregano

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Turkish Lamb Stew, also known as Kuzu Guvec, is a classic comforting food with a few ingredients. Diced lamb and vegetables make the easiest one-pot stew that tastes really satisfying for everyone in the family. A perfect weeknight dinner!

Lamb stew with potatoes and carrots in a large bowl and a spoon in it. Bread slices and another dish with stew on the side.

Kuzu güveç, is a classic traditional Turkish stew that is commonly served with rice pilav. It is a rich, hearty, and comforting dish that is easy to prepare in one pan!

You can cook it either on the stove top or in the oven. In this post, we've shared both methods. The oven method takes longer but is definitely another great, hands-free technique to try.

No matter what type of pan is used, the dish is called guvec today when it is slow cooked and has a thicker consistency than a soup. In this post, we use a stainless pan, so you can easily make it with whatever pan you have.

Jump to:

What Is Guvec?
Substitute Pots for Making Güveç
Ingredients & Substitutes
The Stove-Top Method
Oven Method
Tips
Serving Suggestions
How To Store Leftovers
FAQs
More Hearty Dishes
More Turkish Lamb Dishes
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What Is Guvec?

Guvec is a special dish from Turkey. It is both the name of the stew and the clay pot it's cooked in. When you cook in this pot, the food tastes amazing!

Long ago, during the time of the Ottoman Empire, people loved using clay pots. The Ottomans spread their culture to many places, and so did this way of cooking. That's why you can find similar dishes in the Balkans, too.

Kuzu guvec means lamb stew or lamb casserole. Kuzu: lamb. Guvec: stew or casserole.

Traditional Turkish lamb stew is originally made in earthenware pots. This technique has become significantly less common because clay pots are hard to find, expensive, and not as easy to use as regular pots.

An authentic clay pot with its lid on the side.

Clay pots are heat-proof, so you can use them (like cast iron or Dutch oven) to cook on the stove-top or inside of an oven. They help retain oil and moisture to ensure your food comes out deliciously juicy. The dish has a unique authentic flavor when cooked in a clay pot. Also, they require a slow cooking process, which helps the flavors in the dish blend well.

If you have never used these earthenware pots before, check out our tips about cooking in a clay pot!

Here are some popular dishes that are often prepared using the güveç method in Turkish cuisine:

Dana Güveç: Turkish style beef stew combined with vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, and onions, seasoned with aromatic spices and herbs.
Tavuk Güveç: Chicken stew with mushrooms, tomatoes, and green peppers.
Karides Güveç: Shrimp stew made with shrimps, garlic, tomatoes, and often topped with cheese.
Sebze Güveç: Vegetable stew that features various vegetables like bell peppers, zucchinis, aubergines, and potatoes baked in tomato sauce and olive oil.

Substitute Pots for Making Güveç

If you're eager to make a delicious güveç dish but don't have the traditional earthenware pot on hand, don't worry. There are several alternatives you can use that'll give you a similar slow-cooked, flavorful result. Here are some options:

Cast Iron Dutch Oven: This is one of the closest substitutes for the güveç pot. The thick walls of the Dutch oven allow for even heat distribution, similar to earthenware pots. Its heavy lid ensures that moisture is retained during cooking, keeping the dish tender and juicy.
Casserole Dish: A ceramic or stoneware casserole dish with a tight-fitting lid can also work as an alternative. They're designed for slow-cooked oven dishes and can capture some of the güveç pot's magic.
Oven-Safe Glass Dish with Lid: If none of the above options are available, you can use a regular oven-safe glass dish. Make sure it has a tight-fitting lid or cover it with aluminum foil to keep the moisture in.
Crock-Pot or Slow Cooker: While this method doesn't replicate the oven-cooked texture exactly, slow cookers maintain steady, low temperatures and lock in moisture. This can result in a güveç that's flavorful and tender.

Ingredients & Substitutes

Lamb

For this Turkish casserole recipe with lamb, you can use either a shoulder cut or leg chunks. Whichever you choose, the meat shouldn't be extremely fatty. That will make the dish oily and give it a very uncomfortably heavy flavor.

And if you can't find, you can substitute beef or chicken for it. Just keep in mind that the cooking duration will be longer for beef.

Vegetables

In our authentic lamb guvec recipe, we use a combination of shallots (small onions), potatoes, Turkish green peppers, carrots, garlic and tomatoes.

This is the most popular combination when making kuzu güveç in Turkish cuisine. It creates a deliciously hearty, savory, and meaty casserole that is also very colorful.

You can always add more veggies in this stew. Some other veggies that are often used in Turkey are eggplants (aubergines), green beans (runner beans), green peas, okra and zucchini (courgettes). You can combine lamb meat either with all of these veggies or with one of them.

Spices

Lamb guvec is one of those Turkish dishes that rely on the natural flavors of veggies and meat. So, we only add salt and black pepper.

We’ve also added fresh thyme, which you can replace with oregano. You can also add 2 bay leaves if you have them on hand.

If you do want to make it a little more interesting, you can add some cumin, paprika or pul biber (red pepper flakes).

Tomato Paste

This staple Turkish ingredient adds more depth to this lamb stew. Not to mention some color as well! Use either store-bought or homemade tomato paste.

And again, to make it even richer, you can also add some red pepper paste.

Water

You can substitute vegetable stock for water if you want even more flavors in your kuzu güveç.

The Stove-Top Method

Our Turkish lamb stew is incredibly easy to make on the stove top and essentially is broken down into a few easy steps.

A collage of six pictures showing how to make Turkish lamb stew with vegetables.

Cook The Diced Lamb

To start, place the diced lamb inside a Dutch oven or stainless steel pan. Add the butter as well. Then, place these ingredients over medium-high heat and allow them to cook, covered, for about 5 minutes. The lamb should release all of the water and reabsorb it back.

Once there is very little water left in the pan, lower the heat to medium-low. Leave the lamb to cook without a lid for another 5 minutes while stirring occasionally.

Add The Remaining Ingredients

Add the shallows, potatoes, peppers, carrots, garlic cloves, and tomatoes first. Mix them well so they can be coated with the pan juices first.

Then, season these ingredients with salt and pepper. Finally, add a few sprigs of thyme or oregano on top.

Thin The Tomato Paste

In a separate small bowl, whisk together the tomato paste and hot water. Add this liquid to the lamb and vegetable mix.

Cook The Stew

Cover the pan and allow the ingredients to simmer over low heat for about 40 minutes or until tender but not mushy. Remove from the heat, let it rest for 15 minutes and then serve.

Lamb stew with potatoes and carrots in a pan.

Oven Method

You can cook this traditional kuzu guvec in the oven as well. Make sure to use an oven-proof pan or baking dish for this.

To start, preheat your oven to 325ºF (160ºC). Blitz or grate the tomatoes instead of dicing them. Because you won't stir the dish as much when it is inside the oven, this is the a good way to ensure the tomatoes release all of their juices.
In a casserole dish, combine the lamb, vegetables, salt and pepper. Make sure the ingredients are well seasoned with salt and pepper. Then, add dollops of butter in between the ingredients.
In a separate bowl, thin the tomato paste. Whisk together the hot water and tomato paste. Add this liquid with the grated (or mashed) tomatoes to the baking dish. Finally, add thyme or oregano.
Cover the dish with a lid or sheet of foil. Bake for roughly an hour. After 1 hour, stir the ingredients and cover the dish again. Add extra water if it gets too dry. Bake the stew for another 1 hour.

Guvec with meat and vegetables in an authentic earthenware pot.

Tips

Don't chop the vegetables into very small pieces. Otherwise, they will get mushy.
Some Turkish green peppers are hot while some are sweet. Use whichever you prefer. And if you can't find them, use 1 green bell pepper.
Don't try to cook the lamb guvec fast over high heat. The slow cooking method over low heat is what makes this dish really tasty.
If you want to add eggplants, make sure to remove their bitter juices. To do this, soak them in salty water after chopping them. Then squeeze them in your hands and transfer on a plate.
You can garnish the stew with chopped parsley before serving if you want.

Serving Suggestions

Lamb stew with potatoes and carrots in a large bowl and a spoon in it. Another dish with stew on the side.

The best accompaniment for this Turkish lamb casserole is virtually any type of homemade bread like our Ramazan pidesi or bazlama bread. They can easily absorb all the delicious, flavorful juices from the stew. And they simultaneously act as a serving vessel for the stew.

If you serve bread, you can definitively add Turkish accompaniments like cacik (yogurt and cucumber dip) or coban salatasi (shepherd salad).

If you aren’t a fan of breads, you can also make a pilaf. You have to try this Turkish lamb stew with our famous bulgur pilavi or rice with raisins called ic pilav.

Finally, cabbage pickles or cucumber pickles are always on the table when such a comforting dish is served.

How To Store Leftovers

If you are lucky enough to have leftover Turkish lamb stew, store it inside an airtight container. In the fridge, it will last roughly 4 days.

You can also freeze it. Remember to wrap the container in foil to prevent freezer burn. Frozen, it can last about 3 months.

FAQs

Does lamb get more tender the longer you cook it?

It depends on the type of the meat and how you cook it. Diced lamb cooks in 40-50 minutes over medium low heat on the stove-top and in about 2 hours in a preheated oven (325 F / 160 C).

Can you leave lamb in slow cooker too long?

If you prefer using your slow cooker to make this recipe, go ahead, use it. You can cook the stew on low heat for 7-8 hours or on high heat for 3-4 hours. If you cook lamb longer than this, it might get chewy and dry. So it's better not to leave lamb in slow cooker too long.

What is the best cut of lamb to cook?

It depends on how you are planning to cook it. Leg and rack are the best parts to roast as they are the most tender cuts. Shoulder and shank cuts are best for stews.

More Hearty Dishes

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Turkish Beef Stew
Meatball Stew
Kapuska

More Turkish Lamb Dishes

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