Dinty Moore has nothing on this straightforward and uncomplicated beef stew. Most everything can be found in your pantry or refrigerator shelves. There’s no wine involved so its perfect for people like me who don’t keep red wine on hand.
Beef stew on the left and vegetarian version on the right.
In this recipe you need 4 cups total of winter vegetables. You choose the ones your family loves – turnips, rutabaga, squash, potatoes, sweet potatoes, etc. We’re not fans of most of these winter vegetables so we’ve gone with potatoes and sweet potatoes. To that we’ve added our favorites – carrots, celery, and peas. Hubby rated this dish a 9 out of 10 for deliciousness.
Recipe: Savory Winter Vegetable Beef Stew with Vegetarian Options
Yield: 10 cups
Prep Time:
Cooking Time:
Total Time:
Ingredients
- 2 pounds beef stew meat
- 3 tablespoons flour
- 2 tablespoons vegetable oil or olive oil
- 1 fresh leaf Bay Leaves or ¼ tsp crushed dried Bay Leaf
- 1 tablespoon salt
- ½ teaspoon Marjoram Leaves
- ¼ teaspoon ground Black Pepper
- 28 oz beef broth (I use Pacific Natural Organic Beef Broth)
- 20 small, whole carrots or 3 long cut into 1-inch pieces or combination thereof.
- 2 Sweet potatoes or other winter vegetable
- 2 medium potatoes, peeled and cut into 1-inch chunks
- 1 small onion, peeled and diced
- 2 celery ribs, cut into 1-inch pieces
- 2 cups frozen peas
Instructions
- Coat beef with flour (place flour in a gallon size Ziploc Storage Bag, add half the meat, seal, toss to coat).
- Brown half the beef in oil in large saucepan or Dutch oven on medium-high heat. Brown all sides, remove and reserve. Repeat with remaining beef (adding all of the beef at the same time releases too much liquid into the pan making browning the beef more difficult).
- Stir in seasonings and beef broth.
- Bring to boil. Reduce heat to low; cover and simmer 1-1/2 hours.
- While it's simmering, prepare the vegetables and keep fresh by submerging them in cold water. It's important to keep the sizing uniform so that the vegetables all cook at the same rate.
- Stir in vegetables; cover. Simmer 30 minutes or until vegetables are tender.
- Add additional water or broth as necessary.
- 10 minutes before serving, stir in 2 cups frozen peas.
- Remove bay leaf before serving if you've used a full leaf.
- Prefer a deeper colored sauce? Add 1tsp Kitchen Bouquet Seasoning and Browning Sauce just before serving - stir and warm completely.
- Serve with a green salad and bread.
- I make a second "stew" with faux Beef Bouillon by Better Than Bouillon and vegetables. Better Than Bouillon makes vegetarian, vegan, and full-meat bouillon versions and they're simply the best. For the faux beef, I mixed 8 oz of water with 1 tsp of Better Than Bouillon for the "beef broth" for the vegetarian version. I usually add vegetable crumbles (resembles ground beef) but I skipped them tonight. I cooked a ¼ recipe - just divide the seasonings and cook from "stir in the vegetables" above for a hearty and vegetarian version.
