Celebrate St. Patrick's Day ? with this quick and easy Instant Pot Irish Stew! It's simple to make with just a few ingredients and comes out incredibly flavorful.
1-2tablespoonscornstarchmixed with 1 tablespoon cold water
Instructions
Brown meat:Set Instant Pot to sauté. Heat oil, then brown meat in 2-3 batches (season as it cooks). Once browned, remove from pot and set aside on a plate.
Start gravy:Add onions, celery and garlic to pot and cook until softened, 4-5 minutes. Add tomato paste and cook for 1 more minute. Pour Guinness over meat, scratching any browned bits off the bottom of the pot.
Cook stew:Simmer (on sauté setting) until beer has reduced by half, about 5 minutes. Then switch off instant pot and stir in beef broth, potatoes, carrots and browned meat. Close lid and set valve to "sealing". Press "stew" button.
Pressure release:Once pot is indicating it's done with cooking, do a natural pressure release for 15-20 minutes (just unplug your pot and leave it alone). Then manually release any remaining pressure and open the lid.
Thicken stew:Set instant pot to sauté and stir in cornstarch slurry. Simmer until thickened. Alternatively, blend 1 cup of stew and stir it back in.
Video
Notes
Ingredient notes
Meat: The instant pot is great at tenderizing meat, so you can absolutely go for cheap stew meat here. If you’d rather dice up some beef chuck yourself, that’s perfectly delicious, too. Beef or lamb stew meat work great here, although the lamb does tend to fall apart a little easier.
Celery: Feel free to use finely sliced leeks in place of the celery, if you prefer! My parents always make this with leeks and love it, so it’s a great option if you’d like to switch things up.
Potatoes: I prefer using waxy potatoes in this stew to help them keep their shape (I used Yukon gold). If you use starchy potatoes such as Russet, they will most likely turn into mush.
Guinness beer: Feel free to use a different dark beer you enjoy cooking with.
Recipe tips
Do not skip the natural pressure release, as it helps to tenderize the meat.
While the stew won’t thicken in the pressure cooker (the liquid cannot cook away because the lid is always closed), you can thicken the stew to your taste after cooking using one of the following methods:
blend 1 cup of the stew and stir it back in
make a slurry of 1-2 teaspoons cornstarch and 1 tablespoon cold water, set the instant pot to sauté and stir the slurry into the stew. Simmer until thickened.
Meat cuts: For a beef stew, I love diced chuck roast. It gets tender and flavorful when cooked right. But cheap packets of diced stew meat are perfectly fine here, too. For a lamb stew, I will usually go for diced shoulder.