Beef stew is hearty, savory, warming, and comforting, and a great meal for a family weeknight dinner, and easy to prepare and get on the table with your Electric Pressure Cooker or Instant Pot. Many families back in the 1940s & 1950s would make a hearty beef stew because it was a less expensive cut of meat.
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I like making a healthy beef stew for my family nowadays because it allows me to load up the meal with vegetables while not having too much meat in the dish. For every bowl full of stew you get proportionately more vegetables. I like to put my beef stew over an egg noodle. I used a hearty whole-wheat egg noodle which also beefs up the fiber (pun intended).
One of the hardest things for a mom with little ones is getting a nutritious meal on the table healthy and acceptable to small children’s tastes. It is also difficult to have the meal prepared all at the same time. As well as making a dish that is tasty enough for you and your husband.
One of the tips I learned, as a busy mom of little ones, when I was at home most of the day, was to prepare dinner at lunchtime. Usually, when the children were playing, or down for a nap, I would go into action and do the majority of prep work for dinner. This beef stew recipe works perfectly for easy preparation any time of the day.
First I can brown my meat, chop up all my vegetables put it in the refrigerator. Due to my preparation, an hour before I want dinner completed, I pop everything I have prepared in my pressure cooker or Insta pot. Now my hands are free to do anything during this busiest time right before dinner.
I can brown my meat, chop up all my vegetables put it in the refrigerator. An hour before I want dinner completed, I pop everything I have prepared in my pressure cooker or Insta pot. Now my hands are free to do anything during this busiest time right before dinner.
An Instant Pot Gives You More Time with Your Family
If you are an over-stressed working (outside the home) mom, you know that you only have the time after work and before bedtime to spend with your babies. I always resented spending an hour or so slaving over the stove and then chained to the dishwasher. It would be 7:00 before I was done making a healthy meal. This left me with only an hour of playing, hugging, and laughter. And in many cases, I just sat down with a movie with the kids as I was so overtired.
If this sounds like you, you need an electricpressure cooker. (I wish I had one when my girls were little. Lucky for me I did get one when the girls were in junior highand our baby Joey was born).
This month, when I had a taste for beef stew, we were at Costco where everything in all quantities are giant. Because it was so cold that day, I decided I didn’t want to go to any other store, so I just bought everything at Costco. I came home with giant sizes of potatoes, celery, mushrooms, beef stew, and onions.
I brought out my electric pressure cooker and started preparing the beef stew that night. Nest I grab some freezer Ziplock bags and cut up all the vegetables from Costco. With just an hour of work, I had three extra bags for the freezer of chopped-up vegetables and three extra bags of ground beef stew meat. Therefore, we were able to have a beef stew that night, and for the next week when I have especially busy at work, I will pop everything back into the electric pressure cooker and we will have dinner without any work at all.
I cannot tell you how much my discovery of the electric pressure cooker has made dinner time a snap when I just do not feel like cooking and my family is depending on me to feed them after school and after work. If you purchase yours on Home Shopping they give you a 30 return period. It is worth taking the jump into pressure cooking if you are not happy you just put it back into the box and send it back.
Check Out These Budget Friendly Instant Pots
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Rich Beef Burgundy – Beef Stew
5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star No reviews
Author:Crafting a Family Dinner
Prep Time:30
Cook Time:30 minutes
Total Time:60
Yield:10 servings 1x
Category:main dish
Method:Instant Pot
Cuisine:American
Print Recipe
Description
Rich with wine flavor quick and easy
Ingredients
UnitsScale
2 TLB Olive Oil
Salt & Pepper
3lbs Beef stew meat
1 Bag of Frozen Pearl Onions
3 Minced Garlic
1cup chopped Mushrooms
6 Carrots
1cup Red Wine (Yellow Tail Cabernet Sauvignon)
2cups Beef stock (2 cups of water and 3 cubes)
2 TLB tomato paste
1/2 tsp dried thyme
To Thicken the finished stew
2 TLB Flour
2 TLB butter softened
Instructions
Season the beef with salt and pepper put oil in a heated pot to brown meat in the pressure cooker pot. Add the garlic and onions. Add the rest of the ingredients except for the flour and the butter.
Secure the lid
Set the timer for 30 min.
When the timer is done vent and take off the lid.
Mix the flour and butter into a paste. Add some of the liquid from the stew and mix to a thin mixture. Then mix this into the pot and set for 6 minutes with the lid off. This will thicken the stew.
Notes
The recipe calls for 1 TLB of flour and butter but that did not thicken my stew so I increased it to 2.
Place a lid on top, turn heat down to low, then simmer for 2 hours, stirring occasionally. Remove lid then gently simmer for another 1-1/2 hours, or until the meat is tender and stew has thickened, stirring occasionally. If the stew begins to reduce too quickly before the meat is tender, place the lid back on top.
The Less mode is suitable for softer texture meat, while the Normal mode is for very tender meat, and the More mode is for fall-off-the-bone texture [2]. The Meat/Stew setting is specifically tailored to achieve optimal results when cooking meat and stews [2].
The best way to ensure your beef is tender in your Instant Pot stew is to braise it (aka pan sear it first, then let it stew). Braising turns tough cuts of beef into tender, fall-apart bites. But skip the pre-cut stew beef.
Add spices such as turmeric, coriander and cumin at the early stage of cooking, when you are frying onions and garlic, to enhance the taste of the beef stew. Fresh herbs like coriander and bay leaves also contribute a distinct flavour without making the dish too spicy for the younger members of the family.
Your onions will be fine, but mushy potatoes and carrots are a no-no. Instead, add them about 20 minutes before the end of cooking. When they're tender, the stew is done.
Next time you're shopping for stew beef, look at your options and see what cuts of meat will work best for your recipe. For example, chuck is a lean and tender cut of beef that works well in stew. However, if you would prefer a thicker and more flavorful stew, short ribs or oxtail may be better choices for you.
Chuck meat is your best bet for beef stew, but it's also a pretty tough cut so it needs time to break down and become tender. Rush the cooking process and the beef will be tough and chewy. Follow this tip: For really tender meat, cook the stew low and slow, for approximately two hours.
More From Good Housekeeping. Taste: For overall taste, the pressure cooker was the hands-down winner. Beef, carrots, and potatoes all retained their rich flavors. After 8 hours in the slow cooker, they emerged bland and seemed to need salt.
Instant Pot Instructions: Place everything in the Instant Pot. Select the stew/meat setting (about 35 minutes, high pressure). After it's done, let everything mellow out for about 10 minutes before releasing the steam. Technically at this point, it's done.
Keep in mind that after pressure cooking the meat, you can leave the Instant Pot on the "Keep Warm" setting for up to 10 hours and continue with the recipe when you're ready. The beef will become more tender the longer it sits.
There is no real wrong answer for your beef stew potatoes — russets or red potatoes will work fine — but Yukon Gold potatoes have the best balance of texture and flavor to complement a meaty stew.
Add the wine and tomato paste to the onions and other aromatics in a pan before slow cooking. Plus, this helps to really deglaze any fond that's left. This ingredient is one that your mum and nan would probably use in their stews. It adds a bit of tang, sweetness and savoury spices that give an extra punch of flavour.
Low heat is suggested for all stews, never a hard boil. Placing a lid, slightly ajar on the pot traps the escaping steam and allows it to condense and fall back onto the stew. You can also cook stews in a 350°F oven or on low in a slow cooker.
Once the meat is tender - but not falling apart, add the potatoes, celery, carrots and butternut squash. Pour over another 2 cups of beef broth and enough water to cover the vegetables. Raise heat and bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer partially covered for about 30 minutes - until the vegetables are tender.
Forgetting the Acid. The paradox of beef stew is that all that braised goodness can be a little bit heavy on the palate. It's easy to forget to add some sort of wine, vinegar, or yes, even lemon juice, to brighten things up. Adding some fresh thyme in the last 30 minutes of cooking can help brighten things up as well.
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