This is the best cold weather stew, perfect for dreary days when all you want for dinner is a steaming hot meal. This surprisingly easy dish leaves you extra time to make a batch of homemade biscuits, dinner rolls, or cornbread to help you soak up every drop. This beef stew recipe is sure to become a family favorite.
Why this recipe is the best!
The best part of this recipe, besides how it tastes, is that all of the ingredients are easy to find and you will use them again in other dishes. Even the beef can be anything besides ground beef. Although you may have heard to stay away from the “stew meat” that you can get at the local grocery store, I would say that it would work perfectly in this stew. The reason for that is the long slow simmer in the broth. This will help to slow cook your beef to the perfect texture.
The next best thing about making this beef stew recipe, is that you dont need a ton of special gadgets or hundreds of bowls or pots. You just need one large soup pot, one medium bowl, one chef knife, a cutting board, a veggie peeler, and a big spoon or spatula to stir it all together. Thats it! Now if you asked me, I would request a heavy bottom soup pot and a wooden spoon with a flat edge. The heavy bottom of the soup pot helps to retain the heat when mixing new ingredients in with the hot soup. The flat edge wooden spoon helps to scrap bits off the bottom but is not sharp enough to cut or crush your tender veggies.
When to get started
This is not a slow cooker recipe, but it is also not a super fast beef stew either. It takes about two hours and half from the time you start cooking to the time you eat. It is important to note that most of this time you will be hands-off while the beef simmers. This is really helpful so you can catch up on dishes, prep some biscuits, or one of the other million things we all have to do around our house at dinner time. If I am aiming to eat dinner at 6pm then I will start around 3:30 to 4pm depending on how particular I am with my prep.
How to make the beef stew
This recipe can be as simple or challenging as you like depending on how precise you want to be with your preparations. I find that paying close attention to how I am preparing each ingredient actually improves the beef stew. Starting with the beef, I start by cutting our any of the sinew, or hard fatty bits that are attached to my chunks of stew meat. Like I said before, you can by a lesser expensive cut of meat since it will be tenderized by the cooking process. Once that is done, you can cut the beef into roughly 1 inch cubes. Although this is really personal preference, I find that size allows for other ingredients to fit on the spoon in a single bite.
Next I would prep the tomatoes and the bell pepper. I like to do this right after the meat since I want my attention to be on the browning of the beef and not busy chopping tomatoes. The tomatoes are easy, just cut once down the center and remove the area they were attached to the vine. Then chop each remaining piece into fourths. For the bell pepper, I find it easiest to cut down each bulging side. then cut off the bottom. This tops you from cutting into the seeds in the center and creating a big mess. Then roughly chop the side portions and bottom into one inch squares.
Now you can begin to make the beef stew. Start by dusting the beef in flour in a medium bowl, then brown the beef in the soup pot. Be sure to only brown the outside of the beef. Do not cook the beef all the way through. It is okay if the flour sticks to the bottom and sides of the pot, this will come off later. Once the beef is browned, add in the spices, water, beef stock, tomatoes, and peppers. Bring this to a boil and cover. Once boiling, turn the temperature down to low and simmer the meat for an hour and a half.
While the broth is simmering, you can easily peel and prep the rest of your veggies. Again, paying attention to the cut size of the veggies is important. The goal is that all of the vegetables will finish cooking at the exact same time. To do this, cut the carrots and celery into sections a little larger than an 1/8 of an inch. Then use this thickness as a guide for the potatoes and onion. I generally cut the onion a bit more rough, say, 8 pieces per half. Whereas I cut the potatoes into half-inch squares. The onion will soften and fall apart, but the potato wont. By keeping these sizes in mind, you can keep your cooking time to a minimum and also be sure a bit of each can make it onto the spoon in a single bite.
What to make with this recipe
My personal favorite is to make homemade biscuits since they are quick and easy to make. However, dinner rolls or cornbread would also be a good way to soak up all that slow-cooked flavor. I think pairing this with a light salad is a good way to compliment the hardiness of the stew while packing the meal with a few more veggies. Let me know in the comments below what you decide to pair it with!
How to store the beef stew
You can always make this Stew ahead of time. The flavor will improve as it sits and reheating is easy. This stew can be stored in the fridge for up to a week although it can stiffen over time. If you want to thin it out, you can always add some beef stock to it when you reheat it. You can also free this stew in a plastic bag or container. I prefer to store soup in a plastic bag, If you lay it flat in your freezer until the soup hardens, you can then store it upright. Doing this can help save precious freeze space. It also help with defrosing these items faster since there is more surface area that is open to the air.
Cold Weather Beef Stew Recipe
Ingredient List
Instructions
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Prepare and brown the beef
To prepare the beef, Cut the beef into cubes. You. can cut them larger or smaller depending on your preference. Try to make them uniform size for even cooking. Also, cut off any hard or gristle pieces you wouldn't want to find on your spoon later. Finish the prep by tossing the beef cubes in a couple tablespoons of flour. The should be a light coating and the beef should look pink.
Heat a large pot over medium heat for a few minutes. When warm, add 2 tablespoons of oil to the pot and add beef. Stir the beef frequently to brown on all sides. The goal here is not to cook the beef all the way through but seal in juices.
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Prepare the broth an seasoning
While the beef is browning, roughly chop the bell pepper and quarter the tomatoes. Once the beef is browned on all sides. Add the tomatoes and bell pepper along with the beef stock, salt, pepper, chili powder, bay leaf, and thyme.
Once the broth boils turn the heat down, cover, and simmer on low for 1 1/2 hours.
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Prepare the vegetables
As the broth and beef simmers, Peel and cut the potatoes, onions, carrots, and celery. Add these to the broth once it has simmered for 1 1/2 hours. Cover and continue cooking for 30 mins or until the vegetables are the desired doneness.
Finally, add the peas and cook for a few minutes to heat thoroughly. At this point, you can add more beef broth to thin the stew or a little flour or corn starch to thicken it.
