Easy Beef Stew Made on the Stove or in the Crock Pot

This beef stew recipe is very easy and the beef stew can be either cooked in a crock pot or on the stove. The only difference between the two options will be how long you want to simmer the stew.

The main ingredient in beef stew is cubed beef. Choose beef stew meat which is free from too much fat as it can be tough when it is cooked. The ideal beef stew meat should have a bit of marble but no large areas of fat. In addition, if you like a lot of beef in your stew, you can add some browned hamburger to it as well. I like this option when I do not have a lot of vegetables to add into the stew. (Also works great with any left over hamburger, even things like meatloaf can be chopped up and added to your stew.)

Place a pound or two of beef stew meat into a pot with about two tablespoons of hot vegetable oil. Brown the beef on high while stirring frequently to keep the meat from burning.  In order to brown your meat well, you want the oil to heat in the pan before you add the meat. You should always heat oil before adding ingredients to keep the oil from absorbing into the item you are frying. 

Add to the beef stew meat a chopped large onion, a chopped head of celery, and two tablespoons of minced garlic. Your goal here is simply to sweat out the onions and celery so that they will not have too much crunch in your finished stew. This process allows them to pre-cook a bit and for the garlic flavor to be released.

Once your meat is brown and the veggies have softened, then you want to add two cans of diced or stewed tomatoes, a can of tomato sauce, and two to four cups of water. At this time I also add in two packages of either brown gravy mix or stew mix and a healthy teaspoon of black pepper for seasoning.  If you do not have brown gravy mix or stew mix, you can add in any spices you like.  Most any spices will work well in a beef stew.

At this point, you can add in potatoes and move the entire mixture into your crock pot, or you can continue to cook it on the stove, on low, for five to six hours and add in your potatoes about three hours before the stew will be finished cooking.

The best thing about this easy beef stew recipe is that you can put just about any vegetables you have lying around in the refrigerator or freezer.  This stew also works well with venison or other game meats.