Fool-Proof Beef Stew

Posted on October 17, 2017

It’s my first fall in New York and I’m in love. The sweaters. The open windows. The red wine. The seasonally appropriate recipes!

If I made stew in Florida, it was with full acceptance that I was going to be enjoying it with the A/C running on full blast. Now that it’s cooling down up here, though, I’m whipping out all of the chilis and stews and hot apple ciders that got no love down in West Palm Beach.

This stew is incredibly simple, incredibly easy and pretty much impossible to mess up. I made it once off a recipe (this was the one I followed the first time I made it), but now I don’t even measure anything. I just eyeball it based on what I like and what looks like the right proportions, throw it all in the crockpot and turn that baby on high.

I’ll give you the approximate measurements for how I made this batch, but again feel free to crank the amounts up or down depending on your taste. I use more veggies and less meat and potatoes than the original recipe linked above calls for. The broth and seasoning are yummy enough that I figure why not save on some carbs and sneak in some more veggies while I can, right?

I use an older version of this crockpot from Hamilton Beach and I love it. It’s big enough to make a meal for John and me and still have leftovers but small enough not to take up a huge amount of space in our non-existent kitchen storage.

Without further ado…

Ingredients

1 pound beef stew meat, cubed
¼ cup flour
½ teaspoon salt (AT LEAST)
½ teaspoon pepper
1 onion
2 stalks celery
4 large carrots
1 ½ potato
2 cloves garlic (AT LEAST)
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon paprika
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
1 ½ cups beef broth
Water as needed

Recipe

1. Chop up your stew meat and dump it in the bottom of the crockpot. If you can, look for a cut of meat that has lots of marbling (read: fat), like chuck shoulder or chuck roast. When in doubt, the meat section usually has pre-packaged “stew meat” that’ll work just fine.

2. Combine the flour, salt and pepper and dump it on top of the meat. Use a wooden spoon to mix it around so it coats the meat.

3. Chop your produce. This recipe takes a little while to prep but it’s only because you’re doing so much dang chopping. I can’t stress how much of a difference a good knife makes! It doesn’t have to be some fancy $100 knife, just a good quality one that’s SHARP. I have a Farberware chef knife and use it on pretty much everything.

Also I’ve never properly learned to chop white onions, but I know there has to be a better way than my current technique of ‘stab at them through squinted eyes that burn as if someone threw acid in them.’ If you’ve got the secret for chopping onions without crying, I’d love to hear it.

4. Mince your garlic. I’m a garlic junkie so for me, the more the better.

Fun fact about garlic that I didn’t know until recently: if it has a green spot in the middle or even if it’s starting to sprout, it doesn’t mean the garlic is bad. It just means it’s at prime ripeness and will be stronger than usual. To get rid of the green shoot (it has a bitter taste), just slice the clove of garlic in half and pull it out. Magic!

5. Dump all of the ingredients that aren’t yet in the crockpot in the crockpot. You’ll want liquid coming up about ¾ of the way to the top of your pile of ingredients. Depending on the size of your crockpot, you may need to add a little water. I added about half a cup more of water to mine.

6. Crank on your crockpot and go about your day. You’ll want 10-12 hours on low or 4-6 hours on high. If you’ve got the time to cook it on low all day long, it does make a difference in the tenderness of the meat (i.e. that caramel-y ‘falling apart’ effect that only happens when the meat has had enough time to break down). But if you don’t have that long, AKA me every time I’m rushing to throw this together, it’ll be just fine cooked on high, too, the meat will just be a little more chewy.