Slow Cooker Beef Stew

Slow Cooker Beef Stew is hearty comfort food you can easily make in a crock pot. Tender and melt-in-your-mouth beef is simmered in a rich and divine sauce with carrots, onions, and potatoes.

Recipe Video: Slow Cooker Beef Stew

This Slow Cooker Beef Stew is easy to make and full of flavor. Beef stew is a perfect weeknight meal for the whole family, and a fantastic aroma fills your home as it cooks.

I make it year-round and is one of my favorite Slow Cooker recipes. Plus, it doubles or triples easily! If you want a faster version, make our traditional beef stew recipe.

Ingredients

Beef: The most important thing about this recipe is to use the right beef. The best cuts are CHUCK ROAST. Don’t use packaged “stew meat” from the supermarket.

Potatoes: Use baby potatoes or baking potatoes, and avoid boiling potatoes if you don’t like the mushy potatoes in the stew. If you don’t want to use potatoes, you can add more carrots and onions. Mushroom is also a good choice for this recipe.

Carrots: both regular carrots and baby carrots work well for this recipe.

Wine: Red wine (especially Red Burgundy wine) works well for this recipe. You don’t have to use expensive wine, but try to avoid cooking wine. Alternatively, you can substitute wine with beer such as Guinness. If you want to avoid alcohol, you can substitute wine with apple juice.

Worcestershire Sauce: It adds great flavor to your stew. You can replace with soy sauce if you are in a pinch.

Beef Broth: I used regular beef broth, but you can use low-sodium beef broth to reduce salt intake.

Peas: You can use either fresh or frozen peas. If you use frozen peas, you don’t need to thaw them beforehand as they cook very quickly in the hot stew.

Seasoning: Homemade seasoning is the best, but if you prefer to use packaged seasoning mix, McCormick’s beef stew seasoning mix is a good choice.

How to Make Slow Cooker Beef Stew

Step 1: Season the Beef

Pat the beef dry and cut into 2-inch cubes. Then place them in a large ziplock bag along with flour, onion powder, Italian seasoning, salt and pepper. Shake until well coated.

Step 2: Sear the Beef

In a large skillet on medium-high heat, add cooking oil. When the oil is hot, add beef cubes to fill the pan ¾ full in one layer. Cook the beef in batches. Let your beef sit for about 2-3 minutes before turning them so that you can get brown sear at the bottom. Flip the beef and brown all sides (about 5-6 minutes total per batch). Then transfer the beef to a large plate and set aside. Repeat for any remaining beef.

Note: It’s important not to over-crowd your pan and cook your beef in a single layer. Add more oil for each batch. This step takes some time but it adds so much flavor to your stew. However, you could skip this step if you are in a rush.

Step 3: Braise in the Slow Cooker

Add garlic, onions, carrots, potatoes and browned beef into the slow cooker. Then add red wine, Worcestershire sauce, Italian seasoning, bay leaf, tomato paste and beef broth to the slow cooker. If the liquid doesn’t cover, it’s ok. Just make sure to mix everything well.

Cover and cook on low for 8-9 hours or high for 4 – 5 hours until beef and vegetables are tender.

Note: if your beef is still chewy, you can let the stew simmer for a little longer. Just remember to check it every 20 minutes. It will eventually get tender.

Step 4: Thicken the Stew (Optional)

This Crock Pot Beef Stew tastes best with thickened gravy. About 30 minutes prior to serving, mix together 2 tablespoons of cornstarch with 2 tablespoons cold water in a small bowl (This mixture is called slurry). Pour into the slow cooker, cover and cook on high for 20- 30 minutes until the broth has thickened. If your slow cooker doesn’t get hot fast enough, you could transfer your stew to a large pot and heat on the stove. Stir in peas and cook for a few more minutes. Add more salt and pepper if necessary.

Note: If you want your stew to be thicker, you can add more slurry. Just remember that the stew will thicken more as it cools, especially if you leave it in the fridge overnight, and it will be quite thick even without the slurry.

Selecting the Right Cut of Beef

The most important thing for beef stew is to buy the right cut. Everyone loves the tender meat in the stew, but you need to know that the tender cuts of the meat actually can become tough and chewy if you cook them in a stew.

So the best cuts for beef stew are big and tough cuts. The best choice is chuck roast, which comes from the shoulder and has great flavor. The collagen in its connective tissue breaks down during cooking and leaves you with fork-tender beef.

Other cuts that are good for beef stew include bottom round roast, chuck steak, bottom eye roast, chuck-eye roast, English roast or pot roast, etc.  Make sure to AVOID packaged “stew meat” at the supermarket.  The pre-cut “stew meat” is quite inconsistent and most of the time you would end up with tough and chewy stew.

If your chuck roast is well-marbled, you can trim large pieces of excess fat, but leave the small ones. Cut the beef into big chunks (about 2-inch cubes) as small pieces tend to fall apart during cooking.

Selecting the Right Potatoes

In general, try to use baking potatoes such as Russet potatoes, Goldrush, etc., as they can withstand a couple hours of slow cooking while retaining the shape and texture.

Avoid boiling potatoes such as large red, yellow, salad potatoes as they tend to become mushy when cooked for a long time.  However, baby potatoes work well with this recipe as they can hold their shape well.

Tips for Making the Best Slow Cooker Beef Stew

• Make sure to use the right cuts of meat and chuck roast is the best for this recipe. This is the most important factor in making beef stew. Cut them into big chunks (about 2-inches) so that they won’t fall apart during cooking.
• Searing the beef before adding to the slow cooker takes about extra 10-15 minutes, but it adds so much more flavor to your stew. I highly recommend it. When you sear your beef, make sure not to over-crowd it.
• Thickening the stew 30 minutes before serving will make the stew so flavorful. Just quickly add the cornstarch and water mix, and you will get that nice thick and divine gravy.

Make-ahead Tip

You can make the whole recipe a day ahead, let it cool down and store in the refrigerator. The flavor actually improves overnight.

If you prefer to get the preparation ready the night before and start cooking the next morning, here is what you can do: cut, season and brown the beef, then store in a zip-lock bag or airtight container; cut carrots, garlic and onions, then store them in an airtight container.

If you use large potatoes, you can peel and chop potatoes and place them in a large container, covered with cold water (otherwise they will turn brown).  Then the next morning all you need to do is to spend 5 minutes to throw everything into the crock pot and add the rest of the ingredients (except peas).

How to Serve Slow Cooker Beef Stew

This Slow Cooker Beef Stew is a complete meal on its own. Garnish with parsley and serve warm for the best results. If you don’t include potatoes in this recipe, you can serve beef stew with noodles, pasta, garlic bread, mashed potatoes or rice. The gravy is perfect with buttermilk biscuits.

How to Make Instant Pot Beef Stew

To make Instant Pot Beef Stew, follow the same steps as the slow cooker version, and add all ingredients (except the peas) to the Instant Pot instead of Crock Pot. Then close the lid and cook at high pressure for 35 minutes, or press the “meat/stew” button.

After 35 minutes, let Instant Pot sit for about 10 minutes, then release pressure and open the steam valve. Add peas and stir until peas are warm, for about 5 minutes.

What’s the Difference Between Beef Bourguignon and Beef Stew

Beef Bourguignon is a certain type of Beef Stew made with red wine and a few specific ingredients such as pearl onions and bacon lardons.  The cooking method used is very similar to the regular Beef Stew.

More crock pot beef recipes:

• Mississippi Pot Roast
• Crock Pot Cube Steak

View all slow cooker recipes

Recipe tools:

• Crock pot
• Skillet

Editor Note: Post updated 3/2/2018 with additional details.