Beef Stew: No Stew Packets Allowed
Have you ever had one of your friends tell you something so absurd that it just made you pause for a second and go, “wat”?
This happened to us during a party several years ago. Our friend Dylan had recently moved out on his own and was regaling us with the tale of what he eats on a day to day basis. Turns out, it’s nothing but stew. We had to know more — what kind of stew? What do you put in it? What about fruits and vegetables? How do you not have scurvy? Do you not get sick of eating the same thing every day of your waking existence?
The more he told us, the more concerned we got: water, beef, stew mix, potatoes, sometimes green beans. There was no way it could be good, right?
Then we started Mediocre Chef, and Dylan’s stew sat in our “Blog Posts We Want to Write” list until recently. It’s winter, it’s cold, the whole world has gone crazy, so we decided that we just had to try it and see what it was all about. Turns out that in the five years since we first heard about it, Dylan had improved upon the recipe. So we present to you:
Dylan’s Slow Cooker Beef Stew
Ingredients:
1 package of beef stew cubes (roughly 1kg)
5-6 medium sized potatoes (whatever is the cheapest)
1 yellow or white onion
2 packages of Club House Beef Stew seasoning mix
1 carton of Campbell’s Beef with Red Wine Broth
⅓ to ¼ of a bag of frozen veggie mix (peas, carrots, corn, green beans)
Various spices to taste (black pepper, red pepper flakes, Italian herbs)
Our onions were small so we used more than one.
Instructions:
Fill a pot with enough water to fill roughly ⅔ of your crockpot and set it to boil*.
Cut onion into small-medium diced pieces and cut potatoes into medium chunks.
Put all ingredients into the crockpot — beef stew cubes, potatoes, onion, stew seasoning mix, beef broth, and frozen veggies.
Add boiling water to the crockpot.
Add approx 1 teaspoon of each spice.
Stir ingredients.
Set to low to cook for 8 hours.
Stir every 1-2 hours.
Check for seasoning at the halfway mark and at the end. Add more seasoning to taste.
*This is Dylan’s exact recipe and method. We did not question his method — we wanted to experience what Dylan eats every week when he makes this stew. Why is he boiling water to add to his crock pot? We’re not too sure. The stew packages don’t call for boiling water, but we ran with it anyways. We cheated a bit and boiled our water in a kettle.
Sidenote: it’s also probably important to note the size of the crock pot (4 ½ quarts), and how much water exactly should be added. We figured out after we made his stew that we did not add as much water as he did, so ours came out slightly saltier.
According to Dylan, the blue line is where we were supposed to fill the pot up to with water.
Suggested Pairings:
White bread with margarine
Gatorade (yes, this is what Dylan drinks with his stew)
Our Thoughts
This stew is one note: salt. Think Campbell’s Chunky Beef Stew. Dylan uses two stew packs, and the recipe on the back of the seasoning pack recommends that you use one alongside 2 ½ cups of vegetables and 1.4kg stewing beef. So yea, it’s a lot of salt.
The beef was tender from cooking in the slow cooker all day, but it was missing the delicious flavour you get when you sear beef (there was no browning goodness happening here).
If we were to alter this recipe, we’d use one stew packet and chop up our own carrots so they can be larger (the ones in the frozen veggie mix are too small) in addition to more frozen peas or green beans.
The Sodium Conundrum
My guy, can you feel your heartbeat in your eardrums? This is so much salt. 🧂
The culprits.
Doing some quick salt math we get that, just from the stew packs and the carton of broth, this stew contains 9,552mg of sodium. Health Canada recommends, for a healthy adult between the ages of 14-50 years, 1,500mg of sodium per day, without exceeding 2,300mg per day. Now, of course, you’re not eating an entire crock pot of stew in one sitting. According to Dylan, he gets approximately 10 servings of stew from one pot. That works out to 955mg of sodium per serving. If you add in the requisite Gatorade (270mg of sodium for a 591mL bottle) we get 1,225mg of sodium for one meal. Yikes.
To be honest, neither of us could get over just how salty the stew ended up being. We felt terrible even the next day, and only water could help.
Felt like we were on Arrakis after eating the stew. Bless the maker and his water.
We wanted to show Dylan that stew didn’t have to be so damn salty, and still be full of flavour. So we made:
Mediocre Chef Beef Stew
Ingredients:
1 package of beef stew cubes (roughly 1kg)
4 cups of beef broth (we use Better Than Bouillon)
2 cups of dry red wine (pinot noir, merlot, cab sav)
5 yukon gold potatoes
3 celery sticks
3 carrots
1 large onion
1 shallot
454g of mushrooms
3 cloves of garlic
1 tbsp tomato paste
2 tsp worcestershire sauce (or to taste)
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tbsp cornstarch (or more)
A few sprigs of thyme and rosemary and a bay leaf
Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
In a Dutch oven on medium-high heat, add oil. Once oil is hot, brown your meat and remove from the pan. (Do not overcrowd, or you will steam your meat instead of searing it.)
Mise en place time: dice celery, onion, shallot, garlic. Chop carrots and potatoes into medium-sized pieces. Cut mushrooms into chunks. You don’t need perfection — we’re going for that rustic look anyways.
Cook celery, onion, shallot, garlic, and carrots in the same Dutch oven until your veggies start to soften.
Add tomato paste and cook for 1-2 minutes.
Add mushrooms and cook for a few more minutes.
Deglaze with your choice of dry red wine.
Add seared beef, potatoes, Worcestershire sauce, balsamic vinegar, and beef stock. We added our potatoes here too, but if you want them to have some bite still, add them later.
Tie your herbs together and drop them into the pot.
Simmer on low heat for 2-3 hours.* In the last half hour, if your stew isn’t thick from the potato starch, add a cornstarch slurry to help thicken it up.
Season with salt and pepper to taste. (You can also add more Worcestershire sauce or balsamic vinegar here if you think it needs more.) Remove the herb bundle. Enjoy!
*If you find that you’re losing too much liquid, put a lid on your Dutch oven.
Suggested Pairings:
Homemade buns (we made these ones)
Red wine (leftover from your stew)
Our Thoughts
Not to toot our own horns here, but we absolutely nailed this recipe. In Dylan’s own words: “Your stew was the Deluxe edition. Divine. Exquisite.” 🧑🍳😘
It doesn’t look like much, but it was damn tasty.
Unlike the salt bomb above, our stew had depth and complexity of flavour. Everything worked together to create one of the best beef stews that we have ever had (sorry, Mom).
The best part about any stew recipe is that it is customizable. Don’t like celery? Don’t put it in there. Really love corn? Throw it in. Want it to cook faster? Put it in the oven instead of simmering it.
In our opinion, beef stew should be a hearty, winter meal for when it is waaaay too cold out, and the ingredients should reflect that. It also doesn’t have to be perfect. On the actual day of cooking we were flying by the seat of our pants, and making adjustments as we saw fit.
🧑🍳 Mediocre Tip: Don’t have a Dutch oven or heavy bottomed pot? No worries. You can still use a slow cooker for our stew. Just use a separate pan to first brown the meat and veggies in. Then add everything to the slow cooker and cook on low for 7-8 hours or high for 3-4 hours
Stew Theory™
We aren’t recipe developers, we’re just mediocre chefs. We did a bit of research and looked through several beef stew recipes and found the common themes and ran with them. Here’s what we learned:
Brown your beef. Even if you’re going to cook it in a slow cooker, don’t skip this step. It adds so much extra flavour! If you have an Instant Pot, you can use sauté mode before you pressure cook.
Source: meme_appetit on Instagram.
Don’t skip the wine. 🍷 It’ll add so much more complexity than if you were just using beef stock!
Umami and acidity are your friend — you only need a bit! We added tomato paste and Worcestershire sauce for umami and balsamic vinegar for acidity.
Perfection isn’t needed. Your vegetables don’t have to be diced or chopped into perfectly uniform pieces. It’s stew. If you’re a home cook that’s just starting out, this is a great way to practice your knife skills!
Don’t skip the classic mirepoix (celery, onion, carrot) and potatoes (you can also choose a different root vegetable such as parsnips or turnips). Feel free to add or subtract as you see fit — mushrooms, green beans, peas, etc. are all fair game.
Choose your thickener: flour or cornstarch. If you use cornstarch, always mix it with some water before you add it to your stew — adding cornstarch straight to the pot will cause lumps to form. If you use flour, heed this warning from J Kenji Lopez Alt:
“I found that about 2 tablespoons of flour for 5 cups of starting liquid was about all my stew could handle before flavor started taking a hit. Tossing the flour with the beef after searing and cubing it was the easiest way to incorporate the thickener without creating lumps.”
Go easy on the salt. 🧂 You’ll never quite know how the stew will turn out, so it’s best to season with salt at the very end.
Is there a right way to make a stew? Is there a wrong way? If you need to make stew in a pinch, sure, use a seasoning packet. However, we hope that you (and our good friend Dylan) decide to make stew without a stew packet. It’s just so much better.
You really can’t mess up stew. We messed up multiple times while winging it in the kitchen — but stew is a forgiving dish and you can fix it. Not thick enough? Add more cornstarch or flour. Liquid boiled out? Add more broth or wine. One-dimensional tasting? Add more acidity, salt, or herbs.
Try making a stew from scratch, and let us know what you think!