Crock Pot Beef Stew

Serve up a hot meal without the fuss for your family tonight: This crock pot beef stew is the perfect easy comfort food dinner.

I love that prepping dinner in the morning when the kids are generally in a good mood (or in school) is the best thing I can do to put a hot meal on the table come 6pm, relatively stress free. Hooray for slow cookers!

Stew is one of my favorite things to cook during fall and winter and this right here, or my Crockpot Tuscan White Bean Chicken Stew or Slow Cooker Irish Beef Stew are both regulars from October to February.

Try them all – you’ll love those cozy recipes!

Step by step instructions

First, you’ll need to brown the meat. I season and sprinkle it with flour right in the pan – no need to dirty another dish!

Then, remove the meat to a slow cooker. Place the onions and garlic in the skillet and cook until softened, then season and pour the red wine into the pan (use broth if you want to avoid wine).

Make sure to scratch any browned bits off the bottom of the skillet – that’s where all the flavor is! Then, once the red wine has thickened, add the remaining gravy ingredients and bring to a simmer.

Then, place the vegetables over the meat in the crockpot and (very carefully!!) ladle the hot gravy on top.

Now you’ll just need to let this cook in the slow cooker, add the peas about 10 minutes before you want dinner on the table – and that’s the best beef stew of your life done 😉

Cooking tips

If you want a thick gravy: There are a few different methods to yield a thicker gravy.

• The flouring of the meat helps a lot with thickening the gravy later on.
• If you love very thick beef stew, you can add a shredded FLOURY potato in addition to everything else.
• OR you can stir a cornstarch slurry into the stew about 10-15 minutes before cooking time is up and then cook it with the lid off for the remaining time – it’s what I do with my crockpot mediterranean chicken stew.

Cutting the vegetables: It is important to cut the veggies roughly into the same size chunks, otherwise they won’t cook evenly.

Also, do not cut them too small and do not cut them too big (I know, great advice 😉 ). When cut too small, they will dissolve. So you can leave them quite chunky. Just pay attention that you cut them in a way so a regular adult can eat the veggies without having to cut them up.

The great thing about stew is that it’s a rustic dish – so you can definitely get away with rustic chopping, it doesn’t have to be perfect by any means.

Browning the meat: Flouring and browning the meat before you add it to the crockpot will give you a wealth of extra flavor. It is a step you can leave out if time is very sparse – but the flavor and consistency of the stew will vastly benefit from NOT skipping this step.

Alcohol: The alcohol will evaporate as it cooks in the skillet (it would NOT evaporate as easily if cooked entirely in the crock pot). But if you’re uncomfortable using it, just use more broth.

Maple syrup: I get asked all the time why I put maple syrup in the stew, and it’s just there to add more depth to the flavor. It doesn’t make the stew sweet! But you can leave it out if you don’t want to add it.

Liquid amount: Some readers remarked that 2 cups of liquid doesn’t seem enough for a stew. But before you add more broth, please remember that the added liquid about DOUBLES in a slow cooker dish as it cooks. The stew ends up with plenty of gravy as long as you stick to the amounts given for the vegetables and the beef.

Note: An earlier version of my recipe included fresh thyme and bay leaves, but I got a lot of feedback from people who don’t keep these on hand, so I re-tested the recipe to make sure it tastes nice without them – and it does. Feel free to add a few sprigs of fresh thyme and a few bay leaves to the stew with the vegetables.

Our favorite side dishes

While there is everything you need right in the stew, I still love adding a side or two to stretch the meal.

Some of our favorites:

More hearty comfort food

PS If you try this recipe, please leave a review in the comment section – I appreciate your feedback! Follow along on Pinterest, Facebook or Instagram. Sign up for my email list, too!

The crock pot is such a big help in this season, and we love this slow cooker stew just as much as we love our Crock Pot Stuffed Peppers, Crockpot Chicken and Noodle Soup and my Slow Cooker Chicken Tacos.

I hope you’ll enjoy this cozy meal just as much as we do – enjoy!

P.S: For more stew recipes, check out our collection of homemade beef stew recipes!