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Best Ever Slow Cooker Beef Stew is the absolute perfect comforting beef stew. A thick and rich sauce filled with hearty and chunky potatoes, carrots, onions, and peas with the most amazing tender melt in your mouth beef!
There is nothing better to warm you up than a hearty bowl of beef stew, round it out with one of these amazing roll recipes Perfect Soft and Buttery Rolls or Copycat Texas Roadhouse Rolls and Cinnamon Honey Butter, for the perfect cozy meal.
Best Ever Slow Cooker Beef Stew
I absolutely love a delicious beef stew when the cold weather starts to hit. The requirements for the best beef stew are right in this meal. A thick and rich sauce, big chunky tender hearty veggies, and melt in your mouth beef. This stew has amazing flavor. Your loved ones will love everything about this stew and they will agree it’s the Best!
It doesn’t take much prep and comes together so quickly and easily. The flavor is so savory, comforting and satisfying. It’s like a hug in a meal.
Best Ever Slow Cooker Beef Stew Ingredients:
Simple ingredients make this quick throw together for a wonderful family meal.
- Beef Chuck: Cut the beef into the same sized chunks for even cooking.
- Carrots: Use large carrots and cut them up instead of baby carrots. They bring more flavor.
- Baby Potatoes: If you can’t find baby potatoes, cutting up golden or yellow potatoes will also work.
- Garlic: Fresh Garlic will bring more depth to the recipe than jarred garlic.
- Beef Broth: You can use beef bouillon dissolved in 3 cups hot water as well.
- Tomato Paste: Adds a nice richness to the broth.
- Worcestershire Sauce: Helps bring out that nice meaty flavor.
- Italian Seasoning: It’s the perfect combination of spices for this tasty dish.
- Salt & Pepper: Add to taste.
- Flour: Makes the broth nice and rich and thick
- Peas: Brings color and nice brightness to the stew.
How do you make the Best Beef Stew?
- Sear: Start by pan searing the beef before it goes in. This helps to seal the flavor into the beef while it cooks. Cut your veggies nice and hearty and throw it all into the slow cooker with the beef broth, tomato paste and seasonings.
- Cook: Let the beef and veggies cook on low for a good 8-10 hours. This ensures the beef and the vegetables to be nice and tender. The beef just melts in your mouth.
- Thicken: About an hour before serving the stew, you whisk flour with the stew broth. This will help the sauce to thicken up and be nice and hearty and rich.
Perfect Beef for the Perfect Stew
- Why Chuck roast: The tough cut of a chuck roast which comes from the shoulder area has connective tissue called collagen that breaks down during cooking. The long slow cooking time allows that to break down leaving you with fork tender melt in your mouth beef. It also has exceptional flavor.
- Other Cuts: Can’t find Chuck roast? Try bottom round roast, Chuck Steak, Bottom Eye Roast, or a Pot Roast.
- Avoid: Kind of weird but you should avoid any cuts that start out tender, they will turn out tough and chewy. Also avoid those pre-cut packages of stew meat. They usually consist of leftovers that don’t cook consistently and can also turn out chewy.
- Trim and Cut: If you feel like your roast is well- marbled you can trim off any excess fat. Be sure to cut the beef into the same sized pieces, about 2 inch cubes work best.
Storing the Best Ever Beef Stew
- Storage: Cool the stew to room temperature before sealing in an airtight container. Store in the fridge for up to 4 days.
- Freezing: To freeze place the cooled Beef Stew in an airtight container or freezer ziploc bag. Freeze for up to 3 months.
More Hearty Slow Cooker Beef Recipes:
There’s just something homey and hearty about a slow cooker meal with beef.
- Slow Cooker Beef Bourguignon
- Slow Cooker Beef Tips
- Slow Cooker Korean Beef
- Slow Cooker Beef and Broccoli
- Slow Cooker Mongolian Beef
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Best Ever Slow Cooker Beef Stew
Ingredients
- 3 pounds boneless beef chuck cut to 1 inch cubes
- 5 medium carrots sliced
- 1 pound baby potatoes
- 1 small white onion diced
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 3 cups beef broth
- ½ cup tomato paste
- 1 Tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
- 1 Tablespoon Italian Seasoning
- Salt and pepper to taste
- 1/4 cup flour
- 2 cups frozen peas
Instructions
- Salt and pepper the beef and add to the skillet and sear on each side for 2-3 minutes. Transfer beef to the slow cooker. Add carrots, potatoes, onion, and garlic.
- Add the beef broth, tomato sauce, worcestershire, italian seasoning, and salt and pepper. Cook on low for 8-10 hours and high for 6-8 until beef and veggies are tender.
- An hour before serving, take out 1 cup of the beef stew and whisk with 1/4 cup flour. Stir into the stew along with the frozen peas.
- Let the stew thicken and then serve with fresh chopped parsley on top.
Video
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Ingredient list shows tomato paste, but below in Step 2, it says tomato sauce. This looks like a great recipe and I want to make sure I use the correct ingredient. Thank you
If cooking the meat the night before should it be fully cooked? Or can I 70% cook and make sure it cools down to keep out of danger zone.
I wouldn’t cook anything beforehand. Searing the meat just takes a few minutes and then I would let the meat cook in the slow cooker with everything else so that it can absorb all of the flavors!
Omg!!!! My husband said this stew was better than his mom’s!!! Only thing I added was a can of regular Rotel diced tomatoes & peppers. My entire family LOVED this, it was hearty & went perfectly with warm sweet-n-sour red cabbage & crusty sourdough bread.
Fantastic recipe thankyou!
I made it with my new old slow cooker and will be my go-to beef stew base.
In my variation I fried up red and white onion with some mushrooms after searing the beef and deglazed the pan with some red wine and butter afterward.
I also added some shredded cabbage and some yams on hand to the cooker, used tomato paste instead of sauce, red wine, some brown sugar with salt n pepper to taste, and cornflour to thicken.
So rich and delicious!