Easy Stove-Top Beef Stew

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A quick and easy beef stew for stove-top cookers. Good news, you can cook an entire yummy beef stew all on your own stove! If you don’t own a dutch oven or a crockpot, this is the recipe for you.

When I was first starting out really experimenting and cooking regularly in my kitchen, I was in college. Naturally I didn’t own expensive things like stand mixers or woks or dutch ovens.

Another easy stove-top recipe is this Brown Butter Butternut Squash Soup. It’s extra rich, nutty, and spicy for cold fall days!

Or go for a classic fall favorite with this creamy roasted pumpkin and apple soup.

Jump to Recipe

The annoying thing? Nearly every beef stew recipe out there tells you to put everything in an “oven safe pot” and pop it in your oven for 6 hours.

Well. That wasn’t going to work for me! So this is the recipe I created and used for years to make delicious, flavorful beef stew, entirely on the stove. (In fact, I still use this recipe today. Call it habit. But I just love how it turns out!)

All you need is a pot. It’s got to be large enough to fit beef, veggies, and broth. But it doesn’t need to be “oven-safe” or “indestructible” or “radiation-repellent.” Any old pot will do. (Dutch ovens protect against radiation, right? I mean, they seem like they should.)

How to Make Stove-Top Beef Stew

The process is incredibly simple!

• Season and flour the meat
• Sear/Brown the meat
• Sautée the aromatics and herbs
• Add the beef back in
• Add wine and worchestershire sauce, cook for an hour
• Add hard veggies and broth, cook for 3 to 4 hours
• Add softer veggies, cook for 30 minutes to 1 hour
• Eat it.

I coated my beef with coconut flour because Vasiliy and I are trying to eat less gluten and fewer carbs. (Key word: trying). I chose coconut flour because it is much more absorbent than other nut flours and I wanted to soup to thicken a bit while it cooked.

Of course the best choice is regular old gluten-full wheat or white flour. Gluten is, after all, a valuable resource in cooking. But if you want to be special like me, almond, coconut, and oat flour all work!

Do I need to sear, braise, or brown the stew meat first?

Yes. I can hear you now “what’s a little browning going to do? It’s going to stew anyway, a nice crust won’t matter, right?”

Wrong.

This is NOT a step you should skip. Trust me. Any time you sear or brown meat, you create a crust that traps moisture in. Moist meat is good. No one wants dry, stringy, tough meat. Ever. Take the time to do this step.

Tender meat not enough of a reason for you? Fine. Browning adds flavor. Browning meat naturally releases flavor compounds (via the Maillard reaction, it’s a real thing). Essentially high heat rearranges amino acids (the building blocks of proteins) and simple sugars to create rings that interact in entirely new and different ways.

Which creates entirely new and different flavors. And another side effect: browning!

So yes, you do need this step if you want a depth of flavor in your stew. Trust me, browning and searing really really makes a difference in the final product. Not just the taste of your stew meat, but the flavors in the actual stew broth itself!

Braising is a little different since it requires a small about of liquid. You’ll likely not be braising your meat before adding it to a stew. Braising is often its own method of cooking for things like lamb shanks or short ribs. But if you braise your meat first, it will cut down on your cooking time of the stew. It’s also a good way to add the flavor of a liquid like wine or sauce.

What meat do I use in stew?

Since this is a beef stew recipe, use beef.

I always opt for two varieties in my stew. One large roast and then some additional cubed beef stew meat.

There’s no logical reason for this other than the pure satisfaction I get from plunging a spoon into a tender slow-cooked roast and watch it fall apart. From a spoon. Plus roasts taste good. And they add a level of heartiness. And more meat. Always a good thing.

How do you make stew meat tender?

Simple: slow cooking. And I mean slooooowwww cooking. This isn’t really a trick that works if you’ve got 40 minutes to spare. You gotta cook that beef until it just melts at the touch of your spoon. And that takes time, my friend.

But other than that, it’s fairly simple. Just sear the meat so the juices are trapped inside while it cooks. Then simmer it slowly over the heat for 4-6 hours. Voilà! Tender beef stew. You don’t even have to check on it!

Which veggies go in beef stew?

Which ever you want! Okay, that’s a vague answer. But it’s true.

I classify my veggies into three categories: aromatics, hard, and soft. Super basic, but helpful.

Aromatics are carrots, onions, celery, garlic…the basic ingredients to make stock and broth and give that delicious flavor we all know and love. You need at least 2 of these in your soup. Possibly more if you feel like it. (I usually use all four.)

Hard veggies include things like: potatoes, zucchini, or eggplant. These veggies can cook for a long time before totally disintegrating. They therefore go into the pot right away.

Soft veggies include tomatoes, mushrooms, spinach, kale, green beans, and bell peppers. These guys tend to get very mush very quickly. So, they don’t go into the pot until the last hour of cooking.

Feel free to experiment within these categories and make your stew your own!

Adding grains to beef stew

Adding grains to beef stew is a super easy way to make it much heartier and much thicker. Heavier grains like barley and rice are better since they’ll have to compete with all the flavors and ingredients in the stew.

You can cook them alone and add them in last minute. Or you can cook these grains within the stew from the start.

Alright, at this point you’re probably saying “Kathryn, you said stew was easy and quick!” It is. And now that I’ve talked your ear off with all the nuances of beef stew, we’ll get on to the real reason you came here today: The Recipe!

What pairs with Beef Stew?

Side Dishes: Soup and salad is a classic. Try a watercress and mandarin orange salad.

You could also do barley, bread, or mashed potatoes. All equally yummy!

Wine: Red preferably. I chose to use Cabernet Sauvignon in the stew since it is winter and I wanted the extra weight. But I usually pair with a Côtes du Rhône for a more earthy, rustic vibe. Syrah would work well too. Really any heavy red wine.

Looking for other soups? Try this Butternut Squash Soup with brown butter!

Or take a look at this list of my top 4 fall soups of the season!

This post has been updated with new photos as of October 2020. Check below for old photos. What a difference a year makes!

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