Why slow cook a beef and vegetable stew?

Nothing says winter warmer like a nice healthy, hearty, wholesome beef and vegetable stew. Packed with nutrients and slow cooked in a crock pot to leave you to get on with your afternoon. This recipe focuses on the natural flavours of beef and vegetables. It also has a strong kick of bay to make this stew something you will always remember. This beef and vegetable stew recipe is so simple its hard to find enough words to make it into a blog post. Thats always the trouble with slow cooker recipes or one-pan recipes. How do you turn “chuck it all in and walk away” into 1200 words? I don’t think you really can! This beef and vegetable stew serves 3 and contains 410 kcal per serving.

Do you have a diet restriction?

This recipe is:

Nut Free
Gluten Free
Dairy Free
Paleo Friendly
Syn Free
Ultra Processed Food Free

Ultra processed food free recipes are recipes that use ingredients where no additives have been used. This will include ingredients that can be made at home to be UPF free such as stock cubes, sauces and seasonings.

All slimming world related info is gathered from various internet sources. Syn values may be incorrect or outdated. If you see one is wrong, please let me know so I can update the information!

Step 1: Prepare the vegetables

To start with, we need to prepare some vegetables. Really, you can use any vegetables you have. Stews are a great way to use up whatever is left over in the fridge or pantry. Root vegetables are a great place to start and hold up well in slow cooked recipes, however, something like broccoli for example would quickly disintegrate. I used 2 carrots, 1 onion a parsnip and roughly 1/3 of a swede. My swede was quite large, if you have a smaller one you may want to use more of it. Chop these really roughly into large chunks.

Step 2: Load the slow cooker

Place your vegetables into a slow cooker and add 250ml of beef stock and 250ml of vegetable stock. Typically, only beef stock would be used however I love the taste that mixing vegetable stock into meat stocks gives. It ticks every box! To this add 1tbsp of dried oregano and 4 whole bay leaves. Cover and heat on high for 1 hour.

Step 3: Add the beef

Whilst your slow cooker and vegetables warm up, dice up 300g of beef into rough chunks like you did with your vegetables. I bought my beef pre-diced and it came in impressively uniform chunks…I wonder how they do that?

Leave your beef to one side whilst your slow cooker warms. Slow cookers cook using low temperatures, a fraction of what would be expected from oven or hob recipes. This is why we leave the slow cooker to warm first. If we were to put our meat in at the start whilst everything is still cold the slowly rising temperature could act as a breeding ground for bacteria. Once the stock in your slow cooker starts to bubble gently at the sides you can add your meat. It should ‘brown’ on all sides almost instantly.

Step 4: Let it cook

Turn your slow cooker to high if it isnt already and let it bubble away for 4 hours stirring every once in a while. Approximately 1 hour before you are ready to eat, take a ladle of the stock from your stew and mix it with 2 tbsp of corn flour to make a cornflour slurry and then return this to the stew mixing well. Cook for a further hour with the cornflour to thicken the stew.

What to serve with this beef and vegetable stew

Serve with rice, crusty bread or mashed potatoes. My personal favourite is mashed potatoes.

Can I reheat this stew?

Yes! Any leftover stew will last 2-3 days in a sealed container in the fridge. I reheat my stew by portioning into a microwaveable bowl and microwaving for 4-5 minutes on full power. Make sure your stew is piping hot.

Can I freeze this beef and vegetable stew?

Yes! Portion into containers to freeze. Defrost thoroughly before reheating as instructed above.

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