Hearty and Flavorful Beef Stew

With the last holiday party behind us, and last decoration put away, it’s time to get back to simple and easy meals again.  The cold dark nights of winter call for substantial, nourishing, and filling meals.  This Hearty and Flavorful Beef Stew definitely answers the call.

The wonderful, mouthwatering aroma filling the air makes it hard to wait for the stew to be ready.  A warm bowl of tender beef, veggies, spices, and red wine all melded together is comfort food at its best.

Using a Dutch oven works perfectly for preparing the stew.  You can do all the cooking needed in the Dutch oven, making it an easy one-pot meal.  And with just one pot to clean, what could be better than that?

This recipe takes a total of 2 hours from start to finish, but 90 minutes of that is inactive cooking time.  Meaning that once you’ve prepped the ingredients, browned the beef and started the veggies cooking, the stew practically cooks itself.

To make the stew even more substantial, you could serve it with crusty bread, dumplings, or mashed potatoes.  We had mashed potatoes on hand so I added some to each serving to soak up the rich, flavorful sauce.

Any leftover will keep in the fridge for 3-4 days.  You may find the leftovers to be even tastier since the flavors have even more time to meld together.

Jim is not a big fan of tomatoes, so he would have preferred less tomatoes and more mushrooms.  I, on the other hand, love tomatoes so I thought the amount of tomatoes was just about right.

This Hearty and Flavorful Beef Stew is a great one-pot dish to warm up even the coldest nights.  Give it a try and let me know what you think.

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Print Recipe

Hearty and Flavorful Beef Stew

Prep Time

20 mins

Cook Time

1 hr 40 mins

Total Time

2 hrs

 

This beef stew is the perfect one-pot dish to warm up the coldest nights!!

Course: Main Course

Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients:

• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1 1/2 pounds beef stew meat, cut into 1-inch pieces
• 8 ounces white mushrooms, cut in half
• 2 cups carrots, sliced
• 1 1/2 cups onion, chopped
• 1 1/2 cups celery, sliced
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 1/2 cups water
• 1 cup dry red wine
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 2 (14.5-ounce) cans stewed tomatoes, undrained
• 2 bay leaves
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar

Directions:

1. In a large Dutch oven, heat olive oil on medium high heat.  Add the beef and brown on all sides (about 5 minutes).

   
   

2. Remove the browned beef from the pan and set aside.

   
   

3. Add the mushrooms, carrots, onions, celery and garlic to pan and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

   
   

4. Place the beef back in the pan with the veggies.  Stir in the water, wine, salt, thyme, pepper, stewed tomatoes and bay leaves.

   
   

5. Bring mixture to a boil then reduce heat, cover, and simmer for 90 minutes or until beef is tender.

   
   

6. Discard the bay leaves and stir in red wine vinegar.

   
   

7. Serve warm.

   
   

Notes

Recipe slightly adapted from Beef Stew, page 244, The Cooking Light Gluten-Free Cookbook.