Beef stew recipe

Fall is really here in the northeast, along with what some people have wished for all summer. Flannel shirts, fuzzy boots, bonfires, pumpkin-spiced everything, but for me, fall means comfort foods.

Sam and I both love comforting dishes like stews, soups, and other delicious food that warms your belly and your heart. Comfort food is food of love 💯.

A month ago, at the dinner table, Sam told me that he was looking forward to when I make a big pot of stew. When I was at the grocery store a couple of days ago and picked up a chuck roast, I knew stew would be on the menu this weekend.

I grew up loving beef stew, especially with Pillsbury crescent rolls or biscuits dipped into the gravy. Beef stew was one of the few from-scratch dishes my mother actually made. The beef stew was good, but now looking back at it, it was sort of bland, but my palate at the time didn’t really know the difference.

My mother and I use basically the same base ingredients…stew meat, flour, onions, carrots, beef stock, and a slurry to thicken the stew. I used my Betty Crocker cookbook the first time I made beef stew, and it tasted, well, like my mother’s; it was her cookbook I was using.

My early pots of beef stew were good but lacked any depth of flavor; as I became a better cook and got serious about my cooking skills, I learned how to make the basic stew a culinary masterpiece.

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First, I learned to buy a roast and butcher the meat into my own stew meat. It’s easy to do and usually less expensive. You can remove all the connective tissue and silver skin on the roast and have much nicer pieces of stew meat.

Next, I learned how to brown meat properly. This was where most home cooks steam the beef chunks when they are supposed to be browning the meat. Over-crowding the pan or pot is mistake number one. Moving the meat around often is mistake number two. Adding more fat because the cook thinks the meat is sticking is mistake number three.

After coating the beef chunks with seasoned flour, I use potato starch; a few pieces of meat should be placed in a hot pan with a bit of fat. I use bacon fat usually. This is where you don’t want to overcrowd the pan with too many pieces of meat.

Mistake two is not to move the meat around; let the meat sear, building up a nice crust outside the beef chunks. If you try to lift a piece of meat and it seems to be sticking, do not add more fat; let the meat cook a little longer, and it will release itself from the pan. Trust me, people have this same issue in my cooking classes and are happy when they learn this secret. This is also true whenever grilling meats and proteins.

Cook the beef chunks in batches, browning a few pieces, then transferring them to a bowl. Repeat until all the beef has been properly browned. What you are left with is a beautiful fond on the bottom of the pan. This fond will later be deglazed, releasing all of those tasty little brown bits.

Next, I add onions to the pan with more fat, kosher salt, and pepper. I cook the onions until soft and translucent. Once the onions are ready, red wine is carefully added to the pot. With a wooden spoon, scrape up the bits and cook the wine for 2 minutes or so.

Next, I add some tomato paste, beef broth, fresh or dried rosemary & thyme. I let this come up to a boil, then let it simmer very gently for an hour. In today’s case, I didn’t feel like babysitting a braising pot, stirring often, and making sure it wasn’t burning on the bottom. I set the pot in a 250-degree oven and let the oven do the work.

After an hour or so, I added chunks of yellow potatoes and carrots. I let the stew continue to braise in the oven for another 3 hours. When my timer went off, I pulled it out and took a peek. Ah, yumminess!

I checked to make sure the meat was falling apart tender and that the potatoes and carrots were cooked through as well. I made a quick slurry of potato starch and cold water, then poured it into the hot stew. It thickens immediately as you stir the slurry into the pot. Today, I needed about 2 T potato starch and 2 T water for my slurry.

When adding a slurry to thicken up any stew, you don’t want to add so much to make it too thick and gloppy. You want to add just enough to make a velvety sexy-ass gravy.

The stew is for Monday night’s dinner, which means it will be even better tomorrow night. I already made Sam a take-out dinner with a homemade soft dinner roll for his Monday night overnight shift in the ER. They are swamped in the emergency department, so he usually doesn’t eat his dinner until 3 or 4 in the morning. Watching his eyes dance when I tell him what he has for dinner is absolutely priceless to me.

Below is the link to the beef stew recipe I used in my cooking class. Everyone who tried making it hit a home run. What they once thought was many extra steps proved to them how to build flavor and become a better cook.

Below is my recipe I used in my cooking class. Enjoy!

Old-Fashioned Beef Stew

Serves 6

2 pounds chuck cut into 1 inch pieces or stew meat
1 tsp kosher salt
½  tsp freshly ground black pepper
½ cup potato starch or flour
2 Tbsp canola or vegetable oil
2  Tbsp butter
1 large onion cut into 1 inch chunks
3 cloves of minced garlic
1 cup red wine
4 cups of beef broth 
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 tsp dried thyme 
2 bay leaves
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp kosher salt
¼ tsp freshly ground black pepper 
3-4 carrots cut into 1 inch pieces
3-4 medium potatoes cut into 1 inch pieces

***Optional add ins***

2 large celery stalks cut into 1 inch pieces
6 ounces button mushrooms halved or quartered
1 cup frozen peas
Chopped fresh parsley for garnishing 

In a bowl mix the potato starch/flour, salt and pepper. Add beef  and toss to coat all sides of the pieces of meat.

Heat oil and 1 Tbsp butter in a large dutch oven or heavy stock pot until hot. Add the coated beef chunks working  in batches spacing them out ½ an inch from each other  as to not overcrowd the pot. Generously brown the beef on all sides. Transfer to a  bowl. Repeat with additional batch(es) and set aside. 

Leaving the browned/blackened bit in the pot add onions to the pot along with the other Tbsp of butter. Cook until soft and translucent. Add the garlic and cook for another minute. Add the red wine and bring to a rapid boil,deglaze the pan by  scraping up the browned bits from the bottom of the pan. Boil for 2 minutes then add the beef and their juices from the bowl to the pot. 

Add the beef broth, tomato paste and seasonings. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to low, cover and simmer for 1 ½ hours.

Add the vegetables, cover and cook the another hour. Add more salt and pepper to taste.

Check the tenderness of the vegetables.  Simmer gently on low until vegetables are tender and until stew is to desired thickness.  

Garnish with chopped fresh parsley if desired.