A ladleful of instant pot beef stew on a chilly evening is actual perfection. I have made this beef stew more times than I can count. Sometimes I’ll serve it with my cheddar mashed potatoes. Other times it’s over noodles, rice, or even crusty bread with a side salad. And honestly, is there a wrong way to eat stew? Nope. There isn’t. This recipe started as a comfort food solution for busy days where you still want a warm and hearty home-cooked meal. So on days when you just don’t want to deal with cooking, you can easily pop all ingredients in the pressure cooker and let it cook itself. On days where you can spare an extra five minutes for dinner, sear the beef before you make beef stew. Either way, you’re left with tender chunks of beef and soul-warming gravy! Watch how the flavors dance on your tongue. This homemade beef stew is straightforward. If you can dump a bunch of ingredients into the instant pot, you can make this meal. But if you don’t own an instant pot, I’ll show you how you can cook this nice and slow in the oven.
Ingredients for instant pot beef stew:
Beef: You’ll want to use a large chuck roast for this that’s cut into 1½ inch pieces. Seasonings: You’ll need salt, black pepper, as well as a packet of ranch seasoning. If you happen to have homemade ranch seasoning on hand, just swap the packet for 2 tablespoons of homemade seasoning.Butter: We’ll use a couple of tablespoons of butter to sear the meat in before we cook it off.Garlic: I press the garlic cloves through a garlic press. But you can also mince them if you’d like.Mushrooms: I like to use mushrooms in the stew as it’s just another additional serving of veggies. Quarter larger mushrooms and half the smaller ones so that they cook in the same amount of time.Pearl Onions: These make the stew a bit fancier and cut down on prep time! I find them cleaned and ready to go in the frozen vegetable section of most grocery stores. If you remember to defrost them the night before, perfect. If not, simply place them in a colander and run them under cold running water for a few seconds before adding the drained onions to the stew.Celery: I keep these in about 1-inch pieces so that they don’t cook down too much.Carrots: Same as the celery, I peel and chop the carrots into 1-inch pieces.Pepperoncini: This is an unusual ingredient in my stew but it’s something that I love to add as pepperoncini work beautifully with beef. They cut through some of the fattiness and just meltdown. Make sure to use mild or tamed pepperoncini here so that you just get the tang without all that heat.Tomato Paste: Adds color and richness to the stew.Worcestershire Sauce: Adds umami flavor to the stew along with the other mushrooms.Cornstarch: Is a thickener for the stew instead of flour. I make a cornstarch slurry with the beef stock and add it right in with everything else.Beef Broth:Is the cooking liquid. I suggest using low-sodium beef stock or broth for this recipe so that it’s not too salty but the end. We’ll need a bit more liquid if you’re making the stew in the oven and a little less if you’re making it in the pressure cooker.Potatoes: These are optional. Usually, I prefer to serve the stew with mashed potatoes, so I omit the potatoes from the recipe. When I serve with rice, I’ll add some potatoes. You can use red potatoes or Yukon gold potatoes for this recipe. I suggest chopping the potatoes into roughly the same size pieces as the beef.
How to make the best beef stew in the instant pot:
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Instant Pot Beef Stew recipe originally published September 2017, updated with new post, new images, and oven directions February 2022. SaveSaveSaveSave
RANCH: If you use homemade seasoning, you’ll need 2 tablespoons.OVEN DIRECTIONS: Preheat the oven to 325ºF. You will need to up the amount of broth in the recipe to 2 full cups as more liquid is needed for the oven. Follow steps 1 and 2. Place all the ingredients in a 5-quart dutch oven and bake for 3½ - 4½ hours, stirring once every hour. You can uncover the stew during the last 10 minutes to give it a little color if you’d like, I usually don’t. Keep extra broth on hand just in case the stew thickens too much!
Update 10/17: Some readers mentioned the instant pot displaying a ‘burn’ notice. This occurs when there isn’t sufficient liquid in the pot. After resting the recipe, I’ve upped the liquid to 1½ cups. If you made this without any issues, I suggest keeping the recipe with 1¼ cups. For first-timers, I suggest using 1½ cups of broth. SaveSavSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave SaveSaveSaveSave SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave
