When the weather is bone-chilling cold with gray skies, there’s nothing I crave more than a big bowl of steaming beef stew!  There’s just something warming and comforting about the smell of a slow-cooked stew that warms up your body and puts you in a calm mood.

Yeah, that’s great, but it’s a pain to make, right?  Wrong!  Beef stew is probably one of the easiest things in the world to make.  And, minus maybe a little bit of flour for browning the meat, it’s fairly healthy as well.  Come check out how we make snowy day beef stew on the Suburban Steader Suburban Homestead.

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Snowy Day Beef Stew Recipe

Cuisine

Rustic Homestead Meals

Prep Time

20 minutes

Cook Time

5-7 hours

Servings

hearty servings

Ingredients

• 2-1/2 lbs Stew Meat
• All-Purpose Flour
• 1 Onion Large
• 5 cloves Garlic Minced
• 1 cup Red Wine One You Would Drink
• 2 cup Beef Broth
• Potatoes To Taste
• Carrots To Taste
• Celery To Taste
• Mushrooms To Taste
• Butter Bacon Fat Or Olive Oil Acceptable
• Salt To Taste
• Pepper To Taste
• Italian Seasoning To Taste
• Fresh Chopped Parsley To Taste

Cuisine Rustic Homestead Meals Prep Time 20 minutes Cook Time 5-7 hours Servings hearty servings Ingredients 2-1/2 lbs Stew Meat All-Purpose Flour 1 Onion Large 5 cloves Garlic Minced 1 cup Red Wine One You Would Drink 2 cup Beef Broth Potatoes To Taste Carrots To Taste Celery To Taste Mushrooms To Taste Butter Bacon Fat Or Olive Oil Acceptable Salt To Taste Pepper To Taste Italian Seasoning To Taste Fresh Chopped Parsley To Taste

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 280^oF.
2. If needed, cube the stew meat into bite-size pieces.
3. Place stew meat into a brown paper bag (a large resealable bag will also work) with flour, salt and pepper. You should use enough flour to coat all surfaces of the stew meat but not clump up.
4. Place your enamel dutch oven over low heat and add the butter, bacon fat or olive oil. Bring to temperature.
5. Brown the stew meat. Do not overfill the dutch oven. If you need to do this step in batches, it’s fine. Place the browned meat in a separate bowl.
6. While the meat is browning, dice the onion and garlic.
7. Once all the stew meat is brown, place the onions and garlic in the dutch oven. Salt, pepper and saute for a few minutes until the onions become translucent, stirring regularly. Remove from dutch oven and place in bowl with stew meat.
8. Add enough red wine to the dutch oven so that you can deglaze it. Don’t know how to deglaze a pan? There’s a quick video at the end to help you.
9. Once the dutch oven is fully deglazed, add the stew meat, onions and garlic back into the dutch oven. Pour the beef broth over top of it. Add the bay leaves and a hefty handful of chopped parsley.
10. Cover and place into oven for 2 hours.
11. While the beef stew is simmering away, chop up your potatoes, carrots, celery and mushrooms. I usually try for equal parts of each, but feel free to experiment with what works for you.
12. Once the beef stew has simmered for 2 hours, remove it from the oven and add your chopped vegetables. You can also add your Italian seasoning at this point. It’s not a requirement, but I find it gives a nice little extra flavor to the dish.
13. Cover and return the beef stew to the oven for 3-5 hours. I find that 3 hours is enough, but 5 will work just fine as well. The flavors just melt together the longer they cook. Remove from the oven and enjoy.

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Recommendation

Beef stew is one of those “stick to your ribs” meals that almost everyone loves.  It’s a pretty easy prep and can be a ‘set-it-and-forget-it’ type meal, freeing you up to do other things around the house.  The one tip I have for prep is to make sure you keep the heat quite low when browning the meat and sauteing the onions and garlic.  You want the bottom of the pan to be brown, not black, when you deglaze it.  Another thing to note is that sometimes this recipe can come out a little watery.  If what you end up with is a little too watery for you, take a few cups of the broth out, make a roux (try 2tbsp flour to 2tbsp melted butter), add to the broth and return to the stew.  That should thicken it up.

The recipe above is for a basic beef stew.  Feel free to change things up as you see fit.  Replace the onion with shallots, add other root vegetables like parsnips, turnips and even turnips if you want.  My wife says the mushrooms give it an earthy flavor so, if that’s not your thing, don’t add them.  What I’m getting at is that the recipe I provided is a fairly basic canvas.  Feel free to experiment and tweak it to make it your own.

In terms of serving, I go very simple.  Beef stew is, at its core, a simple dish and does not need a lot of flash added to it.  A nice piece of buttered sourdough bread goes quite well with it.  I recommend a glass of the red wine you used to deglaze the pan or a good craft beer be served alongside it as well.

Give this snowy day beef stew a shot and let us know how it worked out for you!