Easy Braised celery

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A close up of cooked celery in a shallow casserole dish.

4.73 from 11 votes

Learn how to cook braised celery and turn this neglected vegetable into a luxurious side dish.

Servings:

Author: Helen Best-Shaw

Prep Time5

Ingredients

1 tbs butter - 15 g
1 head celery
1 clove garlic
1 tbs olive oil - 15 g
½ cup vegetable stock - 120 ml
1 bay leaf
salt and pepper
5 stalks parsley

Instructions

Break the celery into individual stalks. Chop off the leafy tops and put to one side. Chop each stalk into 2–3" (5–6 cm) lengths, destringing the celery as you go. Peel and finely chop the garlic.
Over a low heat on the stove top, melt the butter in a shallow casserole dish, or lidded saute pan. Add the olive oil. Fry the celery pieces for a few minutes. Then add the garlic and cook for a further couple of minutes. The celery should be starting to turn translucent.
Add the stock, season well with salt and pepper, and add the bay leaf. Bring to the boil, cover with a well-fitting lid, and turn down the heat to a gentle simmer. Leave to cook for 30–40 minutes until the celery is tender.
Remove the lid from the pan, turn up the heat and reduce the stock by half, until thick and syrupy.
Chop the celery leaves and parsley and garnish the dish. Serve.

Notes

To make this a no-waste dish, I usually throw the celery root and parsley stalks into the freezer and add them the next time I make soups or stocks.
I like the taste of the mix of olive oil and butter in this dish, but it works equally well with one or the other.
You want a good rounded fully flavoured stock for this dish. Vegetable is a classic. Equally, if you eat meat chicken stock will work just as well in this braised celery recipe. I make it a bit stronger than usual, so there is less to reduce at the end of cooking.
You can add a good glug of white wine and reduce the volume of stock.
Make this more substantial by adding in a handful of frozen peas when reducing the stock at the end of cooking.
Swap the herbs around depending what else you are serving – I love the classic simple parsley, but woody aromatic herbs like thyme or oregano would work well with tomato based dishes.
You can prepare in advance, keep in the fridge for two days in a covered container and reheat to serve.
Leftovers can be frozen and then added to your next batch of soup.

Nutritional Information

This recipe is worth 5 Weight Watchers Smart Points per portion

• Please note that the nutrition information provided below is approximate and meant as a guideline only.

• Unless stated otherwise cup conversions have been made with an online tool. For accuracy please check with your favoured conversion tool. We recommend buying inexpensive digital kitchen scales.