While checking the sale flyers for my grocery stores last week I noticed that Whole Foods had beef stew meat on sale for $3.99/lb. and I was ALL OVER that. I was finally able to swing by yesterday, the last day of the sale, and pick up some of the beef, along with all the other ingredients to make this amazing Instant Pot Beef Stew.
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Why Use an Instant Pot?
My Slow Cooker Rosemary Garlic Beef Stew is pretty hard to beat, but I wanted to try making a stew in my Instant Pot because A) it’s a lot faster and B) I can do all the steps, including browning the beef, in one pot which means a lot less dishes to clean. YAY!
Do I HAVE to Use an Instant Pot for this Beef Stew?
Ever since the Instant Pot took the cooking world by storm there have been several other multi-cookers to hit the market. You don’t have to use an Instant Pot for this. You can use any other cooker that has both a sauté and a pressure cooking feature, or just use a plain old pressure cooker and do the browning through deglazing steps in a skillet before transferring everything to the pressure cooker.
OR if you don’t have a pressure cooker, you can use a slow cooker just as I did for my Slow Cooker Rosemary Garlic Beef Stew.
Flavor Profile
This recipe starts similarly to the Rosemary Garlic Beef Stew, but I played around with the vegetable mix, using less potatoes and adding in mushrooms and pearl onions. I also skipped the Dijon and added just a little tomato paste for a more traditional beef stew flavor. This Instant Pot Beef Stew turned out so tender and amazing that my boyfriend said, “Is this healthy? Because I could this every day.” Noted! :)
Instant Pot Beef Stew
Servings 6 (10 cups total)Ingredients
- 1 lb beef stew meat (cubed) ($3.99)
- Salt and pepper ($0.05)
- 2 Tbsp flour ($0.02)
- 2 Tbsp butter ($0.22)
- 2 cups beef broth* ($0.26)
- 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce ($0.06)
- 1 Tbsp soy sauce ($0.10)
- 1/2 Tbsp brown sugar ($0.02)
- 2 cloves garlic, minced ($0.16)
- 2 Tbsp tomato paste ($0.13)
- 1 tsp dried rosemary ($0.10)
- 1 tsp dried thyme ($0.10)
- 14 oz bag frozen pearl onions ($2.97)
- 8 oz mushrooms ($1.90)
- 1 lb carrots ($0.99)
- 0.75 lb potatoes ($0.84)
Instructions
- Place the stew meat in a bowl and season lightly with salt and pepper. Add the flour and stir to coat.
- Place the butter in the Instant Pot and turn on the sauté function. Heat the butter until it is melted and sizzling, then add the stew meat. Brown the meat on all sides. Don’t stir too often as this will prevent the meat from achieving a nice brown, crispy exterior. The flour may coat the bottom of the pot and that is okay, just don’t let it burn.
- Pour the beef broth into the pot and stir to dissolve the browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Once dissolved, add the Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, brown sugar, minced garlic, tomato paste, rosemary, and thyme.
- Wash and quarter the mushrooms. Peel and slice the carrots into one-inch sections. Wash the potatoes well, peel if desired, then chop into one-inch cubes. Add the pearl onions (no need to thaw), mushrooms, carrots, and potatoes to the Instant Pot. Give all the ingredients in the pot a good stir.
- Close the lid on the Instant Pot and close the steam valve. Press the “meat/stew” button, or set the cooker to 35 minutes of high pressure. After 35 minutes of high pressure, allow the cooker to naturally cool and release pressure.
- Once the pressure has released, open the steam valve then carefully open the lid. Give the stew a good stir, taste, and adjust the salt if needed. Serve hot with crusty bread.
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Equipment
- Instant Pot
- Chef’s Knife
- White Cutting Boards
- Liquid Measuring Cup
Notes
Nutrition
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How to Make Beef Stew in an Instant Pot – Step by Step Photos
Place one pound of stew meat in a bowl and season with a pinch of salt and pepper. Add 2 Tbsp flour and stir until the meat is coated in the flour.
Add 2 Tbsp butter to the Instant Pot and turn on the sauté function. Heat the butter until it is melted and sizzling, then add the stew meat (and any leftover flour from the bowl). Brown the meat on all sides. Be sure not to stir the meat too often because this can prevent it from forming a nice brown crust. You do not need to cook the beef pieces completely through at this point. Just get a nice brown color on the outside.
Add 2 cups beef broth and stir to dissolve all of the browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Once everything is dissolved off the bottom, add 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce, 1 Tbsp soy sauce, 1/2 Tbsp brown sugar, 2 cloves of minced garlic, 2 Tbsp tomato paste, 1 tsp dried rosemary, and 1 tsp dried thyme.
Wash and quarter the mushrooms. Peel and slice the carrots into one-inch sections. Wash the potatoes well, then cut into one-inch cubes. Add the frozen pearl onions, mushrooms, carrots, and potatoes to the pot. I totally forgot to get a photo of the pearl onions for anyone who is unfamiliar, but here is a link to the pearl onions that I bought. They are small, sweet onions about the size of large grapes. Give everything a brief stir to combine.
Close the lid on the Instant Pot, close the steam valve, then press the “meat/stew” button. This will set the cooker to 35 minutes of high pressure. It takes about 10-15 minutes to get up to pressure, then natural pressure release will take another 15 minutes or so. (Yes, I did paint that “5” on this photo because apparently the numbers on the display flicker at a speed faster than our eyes can see, but slower than my camera shutter. :P )
After the pressure naturally releases, open the steam valve then carefully open the lid. This is what you’ll see. Give it a good stir.
And then it will look more like beef stew! It may seem a bit watery at first, but as the temperature comes down from “molten” to just “really hot” it will thicken a bit. It’s always a good idea to give the stew a final taste and adjust the salt if needed.
And that’s how easy it is to make Instant Pot Beef Stew (or any other multi-cooker beef stew). I highly recommend a good crusty bread to go along with it. I added a touch of parsley for color, but the flavor of the stew is just fine on its own.
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Excellent recipe!! My first one I tried in a new Instant Pot. Not disappointed! !
This stew is so good. It’s probably the best beef stew I’ve ever made, and I’ve tried a lot of recipes. The only changes I made were to omit mushrooms, half the amount of onions, and use a few extra carrots and potatoes. In a pinch you can skip sauteeing the beef. I also like to use frozen pre-sliced carrots to make this quicker.
This is seriously the best beef stew I’ve ever had, and I don’t say that lightly. Thanks so much for posting this recipe!
How many quarts is your instant pot? 3, 6, or 8?
I have the 6 quart model.
I have made this several times. I dont are for onions or mushrooms so I dont put them in. I’ve used whole baby carrots, halved baby carrots, and sliced carrots. (I like halved the best) and new potatoes. I’ve also used bison stew meat. I live in denver and did not adjust the cooking time. I slice up celery and put it in after the stew is finished and pressure released so they dont get mushy. I’ve made this at 1 ½ and double in a 8 cup instant pot without problems.
I am excited to try this. I love your other beef stew recipe. I will be leaving out the mushrooms tho. Do i need to many any adjustments to the broth amount?
Nope, you shouldn’t need to do anything else differently. :)
Could you tell me how long to cook this on a traditional stovetop?
If you double the recipe, do you increase the time?
You don’t need to change the programmed time on the machine, but it will likely take the machine longer to come up to temperature and pressure, and again to lower after it is cooked, so the total cook time will naturally be longer. Also, make sure that if you double this you do not go over the maximum fill line in your IP. Doing so is not safe.
I made this last night and used a large russet potatoe but in 1 inc pieces and they were gone even I opened the pot. Good flavor but no potatoes. What did I do wrong?
Made this tonight and it was a success! I used a Spanish onion and cut it up into small pieces, I also diced up a turnip and added that as well.
I used garlic as well as garlic powder which turned out to be tasty!
Overall a solid 4 * recipe! I just bought my instant pot today so it was a great one to start with :)
Another 5 star recipe!! Super tasty and 3 pick eaters approved! Meat was super tender.
Can you make an “Instant Pot” tag? It looks like this post has a lot of great ones but no instant Pot one and it would be awesome to be able to easily group all of them!
Well, I only have a couple recipes so far and unfortunately I don’t really plan on making more. :(
Oh no! Why not??
I only have russet potatoes, will this still work?
Yes :)
Very tasty doubled the recipe in my 8 qt instant pot. Modified slightly. Sauteed 2 onions removed them then browned the 2.5 lbs of chuck roast cubed in two batches. Deglazed plan witb 3/4 c of red wine making sure all the bits were scraped from the bottom and sides. Allowed wine to reduce slightly. Then added the broth which iwas made with 1 1/2 Tbsp of better than bouillon paste with 3 1/4 c of hot water for broth. Doubled the spices and sauces ( and used low sodium soy sauce).
Made this last night, and have a few thoughts! As written, the 1lb beef wasn’t enough for a hungry family, so I might double just the meat next time. Also, I used russet potatoes b/c that’s what I had on hand. Mistake!!! They turned to mealy mush in the IP, and absorbed all my seasoning. So….don’t use ’em. But otherwise, pretty easy enough to throw together. Not something to do on a rushed weeknight, but good for a weekend meal.