Our favourite winter warmer recipes

Now that we’ve all had our fill of turkey and brussels sprouts it’s time to put Christmas behind us and dig in to some warming recipes to get us through the rest of winter.

We’ve rounded up some of our favourites from around the web, from classic comfort food to decadent hot chocolate and spicy stews.

Slow Cooker Recipes

Lamb Ras el Hanout

This slow cooked Moroccan lamb stew recipe comes courtesy of Janice over at Farmersgirl Kitchen. Served simply with couscous, it’s a beautiful way to get some zing in your Winter.

It’s incredibly easy to do, containing just a few ingredients, with most of the flavour coming from the classic Moroccan spice mix, Ras el Hanlout. You can buy this from any good spice shop.

Sticky Chicken Potato Bake

This scrumptiously straightforward chicken and potato bake is a family friendly recipe dreamt up by Jenny from mummymishaps.co.uk.

Simply flavoured with garlic, rosemary and honey, slow cooking this dish creates a beautifully sticky glaze and ensures that the chicken thighs are succulent and moist.

Spiced Coconut Brown Rice Pudding

Siobhan from Well Worn Whisk whipped up this healthy yet comforting spiced rice pudding – perfect with toasted almonds for breakfast or a warming dessert.

Delicately spiced with cardamom and cinnamon; rich and creamy with coconut; slow cooking gives this warming winter dessert a rich, thick and silky texture.

Veggie and Vegan Recipes

The Warming Bowl

Deliciously Ella’s ‘Warming Bowl’ is a hit of delicious nutrition that has everything you need to keep you going through the cold winter months.

Combining peas, squash, mushroom, spinach and quinoa with an inventive almond butter and lemon dressing, this nourishing dish can bring a vivid Spring vitality to even the bleakest winter night.

Vegetable Chili

Whoever said it’s hard to eat healthy, tasty food on a budget hasn’t tried this vegetable chilli recipe from Frugal Queen, Jane Batt.

At just 75p per portion, cook a big old batch of this on a Sunday night and you’ll be guaranteed a super thrifty week. It’s the perfect leftovers meal because, just like regular chilli, it actually gets better when you reheat it!

Curried Root Vegetable Soup

Got a few odd bits of root vegetable lurking around in the bottom of your fridge? Camilla from fabfood4all.co.uk has a perfect curried root vegetable soup recipe for using it all up.

Her version uses swede, parsnip, carrot and potato, but you can use pretty much any root veg you want. With a generous hit of curry powder and garam masala, this soup is the definition of a winter warmer.

Meat Recipes

Chicken and Mushroom Cobbler

Savoury cobblers are a beautiful way to enjoy the texture combinations of a pie with half the effort.

This chicken and mushroom cobbler recipe from SORTEDfood combines chicken, bacon and mushroom in a rich cream and white wine sauce with a herby cobbler top that’s a sort of hybrid crumble, dumpling pie crust. Check out the video below – this thing must be seen to be believed.

Sausage Coddle

This rather oddly named dish is a deliciously hearty Irish sausage stew combining rustic potatoes, onions and carrots with Irish Rankin sausages and a healthy dose of bacon.

Hannah Michalak from hannahmaggs.co.uk presents her video run-through of this traditional recipe on the Mums Eye View YouTube channel:

Korean Pork and Red Pepper Stew

This vivacious Korean pork stew by Tesco is tasty enough to transform even the dreariest winter dinner time into an enticing Oriental feast.

Succulent pork shoulder is cooked long and slow with chilli, garlic and spring onions to create a fiery broth that’s bursting full of flavour.

Winter Warmer Drinks

Hot Buttered Rum

This silky spiced warm rum cocktail comes courtesy of the guys over at Roundhouse.

You will need:
- 1 x teaspoon unsalted butter
- 1 x teaspoon maple syrup
- 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
- Gold rum
- Dash hot apple juice
- Cinnamon stick to garnish

Method:
- Mix together the butter, maple syrup, allspice and rum in a heatproof glass
- Heat the apple juice, pour into the mix and stir until the butter is melted
- Garnish and stir with a cinnamon stick

Peanut Butter Hot Chocolate

Jack Monroe shares a recipe for deliciously decadent peanut butter hot chocolate that’s a guaranteed cure for winter blues.

You will need:
- 50ml water
- 3 squares of chocolate
- 1 heaped tablespoon of smooth peanut butter
- 150ml milk or almond milk

Method:
- Put the water, peanut butter and chocolate together in a small saucepan on a medium heat.
- Stir well until melted into a glossy paste.
- Add a splash of the milk and stir in, repeat with a bigger splash, and then the rest. Don’t just pour it all in at once – it will be hard to get the lumps out!

Ferrets Bells Cocktail

This sweet and sour, ale-based cocktail courtesy of Red Magazine would warm the cockles of even the chilliest chap.

You will need:
- 25 ml maple syrup
- 1 bottle ale (try Fursty Ferret)
- 25 ml lemon juice
- 25 ml orange juice

Method:
Stir the ingredients together minus the ale. Fill a pint glass with ice and pour in the mix then top with ale and garnish with a wedge of orange.

Check out our food & drink magazines for more amazing recipes ideas for any time of the year.

Images via Andy Miccone, Foodie Baker and Chris Pople.