What to Make Next if You Love Campfire Stew

Warming, easy to make and slimming friendly, it’s no wonder our Campfire Stew has been a huge hit with our amazing Pinch of Nom community since day one (it’s on our website, or you can find it in our very first cookbook on pages 126-128).

Throw all of the ingredients into the slow cooker in the morning, and you’ll come home to a kitchen filled with irresistible, smoky aromas. 

It’s best to start this recipe by making some room in your freezer! Stashing away extra portions for a rainy day is always a good idea. If you’ve already tried it, you’ll know it pairs like a dream with a number of side dishes, including rice, vegetables, potato wedges and mash. 

While Campfire Stew is versatile enough to never get boring, variety is the key to sticking to a slimming-friendly diet. All of these wholesome, budget-friendly dishes will liven up your midweek menu!

What to make next if you love a slow cooker wonder

Nothing makes mealtimes simpler than turning the slow cooker into your best friend. Leaving ingredients to simmer while you go about your day is such a time-saver, especially if you’re wanting to cook up a healthy, low-fuss recipe like our trusty Slow Cooker Balsamic Beef Stew.

We’ve cut beef steaks into bite-sized chunks and tenderised them low and slow, until they’re bursting with flavour from the balsamic glaze.

Why not try a portion with crispy, golden Fondant Potatoes or Roasted Root Vegetables with Feta and Thyme, for a heartier wintery dinner?

The luxurious creaminess of our Slow Cooker Lamb Pasanda is tough to resist, even without knowing you can put it together for such little effort. 

The bulk of the preparation is done in 15 minutes, so all you need to worry about is slowly stirring in low-fat cream cheese, and scattering over the toasted flaked almonds right before serving.

While it looks and tastes like an Indian-inspired fakeaway, this one’s light enough to add to your midweek menu at just 382 calories per serving.

If you can’t wait for it to slow cook, you can make it in a hurry with an Instant Pot or pop it in the oven.

If it’s the bold flavours in our Campfire Stew that have you coming back for more, you need to try our Slow Cooker Thai-Style Pork Curry. You’ll leave your pork to bubble away in a fragrant blend of spices inspired by massaman curry.

To make this rich, satisfying fusion dish delightfully flavourful and slimming friendly, we’ve thickened our sauce with plenty of tasty veggies and dairy-free coconut milk. Try it tonight with a fluffy portion of basmati rice!

It’s so easy to whip up these crowd-pleasing Slow Cooker Chilli Bowls. One for fans of Chilli con Carne, this recipe adds a fun, crispy twist by using low-calorie tortilla wraps to create oven-baked ‘bowls’.

Before each one with rice and chilli (and sour cream or guacamole, if you’d like!), you’ll cook your mince mixture low and slow for around 3 hours.

Once the slow cooker’s done the heavy lifting, it’s all ready to assemble – not forgetting the all-important topping of melty, reduced-fat Cheddar cheese!

If we’ve left you feeling inspired to cook even more slow cooker recipes, take a scroll through our slow cooker recipe roundup.

What to make next to clear out your store cupboard

Campfire Stew is one of those dishes that makes the most of staple ingredients you’re likely to have in your kitchen already, and the same is true of our Mushy Pea Curry.

Raid your store cupboard for budget-friendly tins of baked beans and mushy peas, and transform them into this fakeaway-night favourite.

Our homemade curry sauce has all the flavour of a pot from the chip shop, for a fraction of the calories (freeze leftover sauce in batches to rustle this one up in a hurry next time).

There’s no denying that our Creamy Roasted Red Pepper Chicken Pasta is food for the soul. With a stick blender handy, you can have our rich and smoky pasta sauce blitzed together in a matter of minutes.

Jarred roasted red peppers are the signature part of this dish, giving our sauce so much of its glorious flavour, as well as its eye-catching red colour. To keep things creamy without piling on the calories, gently stir in low-fat cream cheese until silky smooth.

Not sure what to do with tinned tuna and sweetcorn? Making our Tuna and Sweetcorn Fishcakes recipe is a no-brainer. 

You won’t find any fancy ingredients on our ingredients list; we’ve kept things ultra simple with a surprising ingredient in our golden coating…porridge oats! You’ll need to blitz them until they look like coarse flour.

At only 234 calories for two, these fishcakes are nice and easy to squeeze into a midweek meal plan. You can even serve them with a portion of Homemade Oven Chips, if you’re feeling extra hungry.

Our Sausages with Creamy Lentils recipe is a hearty one-pot dish that makes the most of a classic combination, with juicy pork, sage and apple. 

By adding protein-packed green lentils to the mix, your dish will be nutritious and filling without compromising on creaminess. Serve with a spoonful of punchy pickled beetroot, earthy red cabbage and a slice of crusty bread (it’ll help you mop up every last drop!). 

What to make next to use up lots of different vegetables

You can’t make hearty, healthy, slimming-friendly dishes without lots of colourful, delicious vegetables on your ingredients list. While you might expect our Porky Pie to have pork inside, that’s where we’ve got to let you in on a secret…it’s totally meat free!

To make every portion extra filling, we’ve included plenty of freshly-chopped veg, and prepared a savoury sauce with a homemade vegetable paste.

This recipe is great to try out if you’re looking to introduce Meat-free Mondays to your week-by-week meal plan. We’ve used Quorn mince and vegetarian sausages in our recipe, so you’ll never miss the meat.

Nothing says home-cooked comfort quite like our Vegetable Stew with Cheesy Dumplings. This one’s a vegetarian wonder, but there’s nothing to stop you from throwing in bacon or ham, if you’d like to ramp up the savoury flavours.

It’s up to you whether you simmer your thick, herby, cream sauce in the oven or the slow cooker; either way, we promise it’s every bit as warming as our Campfire Stew.

This Piri Piri Chicken Orzo couldn’t be simpler to make. It’s a crowd-pleasing combination of medium-spicy chicken, rainbow-coloured veggies and velvety orzo.

If you’ve never cooked with orzo, it’s a rice-shaped pasta variety that adds a luscious, satisfying texture to any dish it’s a part of (our Cheesy Fajita Orzotto is another tasty example).

Best of all, this one’s cooked together in one easy pot, so there’s no need to worry about piles of washing-up afterwards.

Have you decided what you’re making next?

The sumptuous, slow-cooked smokiness of our Campfire Stew is hard to beat, but all of the delicious options we’ve given you above will leave you just as satisfied. 

Don’t forget to share photos in our Facebook group of what you make next! We have almost 1 million lovely community members waiting to support you on your slimming journey.

You can always take a quick look in our Gallery if you’re on the hunt for even more inspiration. You’ll want to sign up to a free website account to upload and share your photos (we’ve got a step-by-step guide you can follow that makes it even easier).

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