Hardy Beef Stew with Roasted Vegetables

Who doesn’t love the comfort of bold, delicious, and piping hot Beef Stew on a cold winter’s night? Growing up in Boston’s Italian North End, plenty days there qualified!

This version applies tested techniques for tenderizing otherwise tough beef while creating incredibly bold flavors. Simmering broth is flavored with sautéed onion and garlic, red wine, chicken broth, seasoning, and tomato product; cubed plum, tomato paste, ground tomato with puree, etc. Hints of tomato is especially complementary with beef stew.

Main ingredient, beef, I prefer using traditional chuck steak. Seasoned meat needs to be seared crisp on each side to help meat break down during slow cooking. This cut is easy to uniformly cut into strips and lengths that are convenient to flip once during searing. I find cubed beef a little more difficult searing all around. Beef needs to be seared not just browned. If interested, search “The Maillard Reaction” for the science behind it.

Traditionally, root vegetables are simmered with beef and broth until cooked through. To further enhance stew’s bold taste, texture, and character, I oven toast vegetables first with oil and seasoning. Thy are added to stew halfway through cooking. It’s all about rich flavors.

Onions, this stew also benefits from sweating onions. Personally, I’m not a fan of actual onions in my stews. Add if you’d like. Although I use a large slow cooker for this recipe. Check manual for cooking times with either low and slow or quick setting. Beef stew can also be slow cooked in a Dutch oven.