25+ EASY Stew Meat Recipes (2024)

FAQs

How do you make stew meat very tender? ›

Rush the cooking process and the beef will be tough and chewy. Follow this tip: For really tender meat, cook the stew low and slow, for approximately two hours.

Do I Have to Brown the Meat for Beef Stew? Normally, if you were using large hunks of roast for beef stew, yes, you would want to brown them first before simmering/braising. Since the beef is cut so small in this recipe though, all you need to do is saute in the Dutch oven with the vegetables before braising.

Add spices such as turmeric, coriander and cumin at the early stage of cooking, when you are frying onions and garlic, to enhance the taste of the beef stew. Fresh herbs like coriander and bay leaves also contribute a distinct flavour without making the dish too spicy for the younger members of the family.

The longer you cook it, the more tender the meat will become.

Cover the pot and let the stew simmer for 1.5 to 2 hours. This slow cooking method allows the meat to become juicy and tender. After the initial cooking time, add the vegetables of your choice. Carrots, potatoes, and celery are classic options that add both flavor and texture to the stew.

Very simply put, browning equals flavor. As beef sears, the outside caramelizes, adding extra flavor to the beef, not to mention creating these tasty little browned bits that form on the bottom of the pot. Without browning, the finished stew just won't taste as good and the sauce won't be as dark.

Tossing the raw meat in a starch, like flour, will increase the rate of browning, but browned flour just doesn't taste as good as browned beef. Eventually, that liquid will evaporate again, and your meat will start browning, but the problem is that the entire time the liquid is steaming, your meat continues to cook.

Toss meat pieces in flour prior to browning. The flour helps to thicken a stew as it cooks. Whisk a teaspoon of flour in a little cold water to make a slurry, then stir into the stew as it's cooking. Don't add dry flour directly to the stew as it may clump.

The flavor of the stew might be slightly less complex, and the sauce a little paler. You could add a bit of soy sauce or Worcestershire sauce and it would taste just fine. Browning or searing meat on high heat is essential for a stew with a deep rich flavor.

Start by trimming any excess fat from the stew meat. This will help prevent splattering while frying and give you a leaner result. Cut the meat into bite-sized pieces, ensuring they are as evenly sized as possible for even cooking.

Can you eat stew meat like steak? ›

We really think stew meat deserves a better name, high quality stew meat at least. That's why we call this dish Stew Meat Steak Bites. Very seldom do we actually use "stew meat" in stews. This is a great way to take a lower priced, lean cut and turn it into a mouth watering dish the whole family will love.

A bit of tomato paste amps up the flavor of beef stew, giving it a richness and a punch of umami that makes the stew truly memorable.

The first step to a flavorful stew is browning the meat. Searing it over high heat gives the meat a deeper, richer flavor thanks to the Maillard reaction, a chemical reaction that browns and caramelizes the exterior of the meat.

Simmer, don't boil. It starts out tough but long slow cooking will melt the connective tissue. If you cook past the time when the connective tissue is melted, you boil out all the water in the meat and it becomes tough again, like a well-done steak. So check your stew/braise and when the meat is tender, it's done.

Those cuts of meat just don't have enough collagen in them. Two options really, either it is really a poor cut of beef, or more likely it hasn't been cooked for long enough. Usually 3 hours in the oven in a casserole dish at 180C/350F should make any cut of beef tender.

I'd say you either sauté it on a very hot fire (in oil/butter, no watery liquids yet) for a very short time (less than a minute if you have small chunks), or you let it simmer for as long as possible, so that you get a stew-like effect, which makes it tender in a very different way, could be 45 to 180 minutes for a ...