Are you looking for some easy recipes for beef stew? Then, you are at the right place. Keep reading.ย
Itโs rather mandatory that when you have beef, you ought to make beef stew. And honestly, itโs one super lip-smacking dish that one would always want to devour on, especially during the chilly winter vibes.
The comfort and taste the dish offers leave one with unexplained satisfaction. It is also often a celebratory one-pot meal for a feast one can make when having guests over.
Itโs cooked to perfection! The cozy classic beef stew with the richness of tender beef, carrots, mushrooms, and potatoes. The tender cooked meat with a delicious gravy forms a simply classic comfort food.
Almost everyone will adore them, especially on frosty nights! All those good things stewed in this perfectly hearty sauce are classic stew with a hearty, tempting flavor bound to make you a fan of the dish.
Treat for your taste buds:
The dish is infused with the amazing flavors of beef dipped in an exquisite gravy of the goodness of the vegetables and the aromatic flavors, making it quite a remarkable delicacy.
The beef stew makes a complete meal by itself, as one can never get enough of its taste and goodness. It makes a perfect choice for feast evenings and any such occasions to garner all the praises and applauses.
Homemade beef stew never fails to please and is a total delight. Making the best beef stew and getting the flavors right is an art by itself. So, hereโs a cool and especially classic beef stew recipe if youโre looking to try to make one of the best beef stew at home to master the art of the wonderful stew.
Initially, when youโre preparing to make beef stew, you must make sure you choose the best ingredients. Be careful to have a good range of preparation before beginning. Prepare the ingredients as per your taste and convenience. Here goes one of the easiest and the best beef stew recipes.
However, do not avoid many ingredients, as the taste will change a great deal. So, make sure that you choose the right substitutes for the ingredients because you do not want to distort the taste.
The preparation of the ingredients doesnโt require much effort. All you have to do is chop and dice the beef and the vegetables and have the other ingredients handy so that you can throw them into the pot one after the other.
The ingredients, along with the measurements that you will need for this recipe, are listed below.
Ingredients:
- 1 & 1/2 kg fresh and neatly cut medium-sized boneless beef chuck meat,
- 3-4 cups beef broth
- 2-3 tablespoons olive oil,
- 2-3 teaspoons of black pepper & salt
- 2 bay leaves,
- Some fresh rosemary, fresh thyme sprigs, parsley, and spices of your choice for the aromatic flavor,
- 1/3 tsp ginger-garlic paste,
- 2 tablespoons tomato paste,
- 1 cup red wine/ red wine vinegar,
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour,
- Vegetables:
- 1-2 medium-sized onions diced,
- 2 diced stalks celery,
- 1 medium-sized tomato (if you are not using tomato paste),
- a small bowl of frozen peas,
- 1-2 carrots peeled and cut,
- 2-3 diced/ mashed potatoes,
You can use any other veggies of your preference that you want to use up and make the stew more lively. You could also double or reduce the ingredients depending on your requirement for a feast or celebration or just a few people that you will serve.
Recipes for beef stew: Cooking options
You can make the beef stew recipe in a crockpot and follow the slow cooker recipe if you do not wish to use the Dutch oven. The total cooking time in this recipe will take about 3 hours.
It takes a lot of patience until the dish is perfectly ready, but it is worth the wait and offers complete satisfaction.
However, the slow cooker recipe, although even simpler than this, takes forever to cook. The taste does not change much but can take up to 5 hours to get the tenderness of the meat and absorb the taste in the stew.
A short description of that recipe is mentioned below.
The best option for beef stew meat:
The best part often used in the beef stew is ground chuck ribs (from a cowโs rib). It is nicely trimmed with fat, and its flavors add to the taste and enhance the beef stew recipe. Also, itโs more affordable than most other options.
How to amazingly stew the beef:
The method to prepare the beef broth and stew the beef is extremely simple. To begin with, marinate the pieces of the beef chuck with a quarter cup of all-purpose flour, half a tablespoon olive oil, season with salt and pepper, also add garlic and ginger paste to it for a better flavor of the stew meat.
For beef broth, you can easily make it at home in bulk and store it so that you can use it for multiple recipes. You will need 4-5 cups of beef stock for this recipe.
Recipes for beef stew: The classic Dutch oven beef stew
Next, heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven on the stovetop for the traditional feel. Toss in the marinated chuck meat and let it roast until brown on both sides for about four to five minutes. Note that you must roast the chuck in batches, do not overcrowd the pot so that the chuck browns properly and softens a bit.
Transfer the now tender chuck roast from the dutch oven to a different vessel and use the same pot on medium-high heat. Add some more olive oil to the pot and put in the diced onions; cook them until they soften slightly.
Once the onions start to soften, put in about two tablespoons of tomato paste and stir it for a while to introduce some tangy taste to the beef stew recipe. If you do not have it, substitute the tomato paste with small diced tomatoes.
After this step, add some seasoning salt and pepper to taste. Keep occasionally stirring so that the crust forming at the bottom doesnโt burn. Also, add some flour so that the beef stew would have quite a thick consistency.
How to thicken the beef stew for a rich gravy:
Naturally, the beef stew would thicken with the starch present in potatoes. However, before adding the veggies, a crust will start to form at the bottom of the pot.
Here, you could add a cup of red wine or red wine vinegar into the pot, whichever is available, and scrape up the crust, which will enrich the taste and thicken the gravy beautifully.
This step is crucial as the crust makes a flavourful thick gravy. But if you want to avoid the alcoholic flavor, you could use the corn starch slurry by adding some water to the cornflour and using the flour mixture.
Adding some flavors to your savory stew:
Once youโve prepared the gravy sauce, add beef chuck roast from a while ago into the gravy. Also, put about four to five cups of beef broth into the gravy and let it cook on high heat for a while.
Along the process, put in a few bay leaves, some fresh thyme, and any other spices of your choice to add a nice aromatic, savory flavor to the stew.
Spices are the key tastemakers. They add a special flavor to the stew, so you wouldnโt want to miss out on that. Taste the gravy at this point for salt and pepper and adjust seasoning.
Adding the veggies:
Once the stew comes to a boil, let it cook uncovered and reduce heat to medium to low for about an hour so that the beef broth that you added reduces a bit and returns to the normal consistency as before, and the gravy thickens.
Also, now start adding vegetables, carrots, potatoes, some diced celery stalks, and other veggies.
Stir-mix the gravy well so that veggies too absorb the flavors of the beef stew. Cover the pot with a lid at this point and let the stew cook for about another hour so that the beef and the vegetables in the beef stew cook completely and become nicely tender and easily chewable.
Finishing it off in style:
After the hour has passed, remove the lid and make sure the consistency depends on the number of people you will serve. In the end, add a cup of frozen peas to the stew and cook them well until theyโre properly warmed.
Remove the bay leaves and thymes at this stage as their job is done, and turn off the stove. Garnish it with some fresh rosemary and sprinkle some pepper to taste. And thatโs how easily you make a wonderful beef stew.
Below Iโve mentioned a few serving tips that I prefer.
Some tips to win at the recipe:
- Browning the beef then putting in the other ingredients is essential in the beef stew recipe to get the taste right. This recipe process leaves a crust that retains and locks taste and helps with a rich gravy. The brown bits from the bottom dissolve into the broth and add more flavor to the beef. So, you should make sure you shouldnโt skip on that.
- Another thing is if you use a new baby or golden potato, you do not need to peel them. If you are using baby potatoes, you should peel them when you donโt use them excessively. Slightly mashing the veggies also helps to thicken the beef stew quickly.
- All steps, when followed properly, helps maximize the flavors of the stew, so follow the steps with patience as the outcome will exactly be what you want.
Recipes for beef stew: serving tips
Once youโve turned the heat off, your delicious beef stew is all ready to be served and devoured. The red wine flavor of the beef stew also demands a cup of red wine alongside the dish on chilly nights.
The stew is one complete meal by itself, but you can serve it with crusty bread or rice. It is also usually served with a biscuit or even garlic rolled quarters to sop its broth.
I like to eat it along with baked or fried potatoes. Even a couple of small cracked chips can do the job. You can choose some light side dishes like pasta as per your liking that would go well with the flavor-packed beef stew.
Storing the beef stew:
With this deliciously prepared beef stew recipe, there are zero chances for any leftovers. However, if you cook for up to three meals, you can freeze beef stew leftovers.
Allow the stew to cool, then transfer them to containers or freezer bags, and you can store it in the fridge for up to 4 days. Many say stews are just as good the next day, so you do not have to compromise with the taste of the stew.
When stored in an appropriate container, it can still be kept in the fridge until 3 months. But, there is hardly any chance for you to keep it for that long, as it is finished as soon as it is served on the table. If you want to freeze the stew beforehand, you must thicken it when it is about to cool.
Recipes for beef stew: Quick overview
Although it may take 3 hours to cook, but simply put, the recipe can be prepared in just 8 modest steps. Here you go with the steps if youโre looking for a revision of the recipe:
Step 1: Marinate the beef chuck pieces with salt and pepper, ginger-garlic paste, and flour.
Step 2: Roast the marinated beef using some olive oil. Transfer them into another vessel and prepare for the stew.
Step 3: Using the same pot, add some diced onions, fry them until soft and add some tomato paste. Add some seasoning too and some flour for the crust.
Step 4: Add red wine or red wine vinegar to the pot and scrape the crust for flavoring. You can also use slurry for thickening the gravy.
Step 5: Add the chuck roast and beef broth into the gravy and add spices like bay leaves, fresh thyme for flavoring.
Step 6: Let the gravy come to a boil and then cook for an hour on medium to low flame until the excess water thickens.
Step 7: After an hour, add the vegetables, cover with a lid, and cook for another hour on medium flame. (vegetables are added later as they would become mushy if cooked for too long.)
Step 8: Now, add the frozen peas into the gravy, remove the bay leaves and thyme. Garnish with crushed rosemary or parsley, and it is all ready to serve!
Tips:ย In place of red wine vinegar, you can also use balsamic vinegar.
Recipes for beef stew: beef stew in crockpot
This recipe very much follows the same ingredients. All you have to do is throw in all the ingredients in the pot one after the other and let it cook. This recipe takes longer to cook but is easier than the one above.
- Firstly put the roasted chuck meat and the veggies into the pot, greased with some olive oil, and cook them on a medium flame.
- Simultaneously, mix all the liquids, including beef stock, Worcestershire sauce, tomato paste, and vegetable stock, along with the seasonings of salt and pepper, and whisk it all together.
- Pour the liquids in the cooker over the beef and vegetables and add spices like bay leaves and thyme.
- Let it cook for hours on low heat and cover it with a lid. It will take about 2-3 hours if you cook it on high heat, but slow heat is mostly preferred.
- After hours remove the lid, check if the meat is tendered, and break down easily on touch. Then, youโre done with the cooking.
- Before turning off the heat, add the frozen peas. Serve it hot with garnishing and seasoning! Once warmed, toss out the bay leaves and thyme sprig, and thatโs how simply you are done with this recipe.
Iโve mentioned the serving tips above, and you can refer to those.
Ultimately, youโre the chef of your kitchen, so youโre free to add your variations to the dish and invent your recipe. You could try different combinations of vegetables or add your seasoning or preferred spices.
However, make sure you do not alter the essence of the recipe and stick to the main character of the beef stew. But, I suggest you only try out your innovations after youโve tried the finger-licking-ly amazing classic recipes that are given above. You would not wish to alter the recipe as the dish is very perfectly crafted.
Iโve explained two effortlessly simple beef stew recipes which will not require much effort. All you will need is patience. And the patience will pay you with complete satisfaction. You should try these out.
Follow these amazingly simple homemade recipes for beef stew to amaze your guests at dinner tonight and become the chef in the limelight.
I hope you enjoyed reading these recipes for beef stew, and you will soon try it at your home. Do tell us how you liked it.
Also, you can share your recipes for beef stew with us in the comment section.
Last Updated on by Sathi
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