Instant Pot Beef Stew

The word stew never used to sound that appealing to me, but now I love it. It can be the perfect warm comfort food in the fall and winter months (or really anytime in San Francisco since the weather never changes). Other reasons to try it: it’s cheap, it makes good leftovers, and it even freezes well! The first time I made this my only regret was that I didn’t double or triple the recipe for seconds and leftovers (the original recipe serves a modest 4).

Scroll to the bottom for instructions on how to make this without an Instant Pot.

Ingredients

• 2 lb beef stew meat (cut into ~2” pieces)

• 1 tsp salt

• 1/2 tsp ground pepper

• 2 TB flour

• 2 TB olive oil

• 1/2 yellow onion, chopped

• 4 garlic cloves, minced (if you are like me — round up to 6 ;))

• 1 large carrot, cut into 2” pieces

• 2 gold potatoes, diced

• 2 cups beef broth (I use Better Than Bouillon - easy to have around, never goes bad)

• 1/4c tomato paste (store the rest of the container in a mason jar and refrigerate for later use!)

• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce

• 1-2 bay leaves (mine were kind of old, so I threw two in)

• 2 TB fresh thyme leaves

Directions

1. Season the beef with salt + pepper, then coat with flour
2. Heat the olive oil in a large Dutch oven or a relatively deep pan (preferably cast iron) over medium heat.
3. Brown beef on all sides (should take around 3-4 minutes). If you’re doubling, you might want to do it in 2 batches so that you can cook it evenly. Transfer to a plate and set aside.
4. Add onions, garlic, carrots to the pan and cook for 2-3 minutes. At this point the vegetables should be slightly browned, but the carrots don’t need to be cooked through.
5. Add potatoes, beef broth, tomato paste, thyme, bay leaf, and Worcestershire sauce. Scrape the bottom of the pan to make sure that the browned bits are part of the mixture and bring to a simmer.
6. Add the vegetables and beef to your Instant Pot. Cook for 32 minutes using the manual setting. It will take a few minutes to come to pressure, so you’ll find that it really takes somewhere around 37 minutes.
7. Taste, season with more salt and pepper if needed and serve with rice, bread, cornbread, or whatever you like! I love a good loaf of sourdough.

Tips

• This is a very hearty stew with plenty of meat! If you prefer less meat, you might increase all of the ingredients by 50% except the olive oil, beef and the flour that coats the beef.

• If you don’t have an instant pot, you can add the beef back into your Dutch oven after step five, cover, and bake at 325 for 2.5 hours instead.