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.
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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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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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Is the pot supposed to be boiling away while you measure things into it? I didn’t turn off the sautéed until I needed to to set the stew timer. Should I have turned it off earlier!
Don’t know how tastes or looks yet. I have 13 minutes left to wait.
Am wondering the same. I pre measured everything so i think ill just leave saute on for no more than 5 min before adding the rest of veggies
I made this and the flavor was grear but all of the liquid cooked out. What do you think went wrong? Am I missing more than the 2 c broth?
That’s interesting. I’m not sure why that might have happened. Pressure cookers hold all moisture inside the pot, so all the extra juices from the vegetables and meat should have increased the liquid amount after cooking.
You might need a new seal (ring).
Will the veggies hold their texture or firmness for this length of time in the pot? That is the only thing holding me back from trying my stew recipe in the pot.
They get soft and break down slightly, but that adds to the thickness and flavor of the gravy. I feel like vegetables should be very soft in a stew because generally it’s cooked a very long time.
I have the stew in the pot. I normally wing things
I used a bit more flour one my beef cubes. And a we bit more butter. I am hoping this will turn my beef broth a slightly thicker browner. I added onions while sauting. Maybe added to many potatoes, I can extract those and use them for breakfast. As far as the worcester sause and other items, the ingrediants list is bad. I used garlic salt and beef rub one the meat then rolled it in flour. Added potatoes carrots celery and sweet onion and fresh tomatoe. My mother never used that other junk one Sunday pot roast. Hopefully it will turn out well.
I bet you’re fun at parties
Hmm. After 35 min and natural release,the meat was tough, The taste was great, but i like my stew meat to fall apart
You can always turn it back on for an additional 10 minutes to get it to that nice fall-apart level.
My partner is trying out the Paleo diet for a bit, and I’m trying to be supportive– but also don’t want to cook two meals every night! Wondering if you had suggestions on a substitution for the potatoes? More of the other veggies? Sweet potatoes?
Yes, carrots, sweet potatoes, and maybe rutabaga or turnips?
What was the clean up like on this? Bc I know the instant pot instructions say specifically not to use flour in it. Or is this too little flour to scorch the pot?
I didn’t have any problems with it and I think it’s because 1) there isn’t much flour, like you suggested, and 2) I deglazed the flour off the bottom of the pot before pressure cooking. If you were to leave the browned flour bits stuck to the bottom I think you’d definitely have some burning. :)
This is amazing! My husband complimented me three times on this recipe. Definitely a keeper :)
Blow away by this recipe. I’ve never really cooked with beef or made a stew before. This was AMAZING! It was so so good, and so easy to make. I love the fact that this is a pressure cooker recipe, cause sometimes the pressure cooker can be intimidating, so it was nice to have an easy step by step. I’ve made so many of your recipes, but this is probably my favorite so far.
Love love love everything you do. Thank you so much for this site. It is a life safer, you dont even know <3
Thank you Beth! Another hit for me and the kids. I don’t have an Instant Pot but cooked it like any other stew. My son who works in an fancy French restaurant said it tasted like beef burgundy; I agree. Your web site is my go-to source for good eats and has been for several years now. I really appreciate the reasonable cost of the ingredients and being able to easily find them in my pantry or local grocery store…..Just good food. ….Thank you.
Would I need to increase the cook time if I am doubling this?
Just read through the comments and found my answer! Thanks for this recipe. My husband was very impressed with this stew!
The actual cook time will be the same, but the pot will likely take more time to come up to pressure, and then longer to depressurize. Also, just be careful that you don’t fill the pot past the max fill line. :)
I made this a couple of weeks ago and wanted to come back to tell everyone how FANTASTIC it is! I increased the ingredients a bit because I had 1.5 lbs of stew meat. I used a LOT more potatoes and carrots! Skipped the pearl onions so husband wouldn’t wig out (I added some dried shallots instead!). I am so happy you created a budget pressure cooker recipe for beef stew!
This was delicious and we even used grass fed beef! I will say the resulting broth is very thin, but could easily be remedied with a little cornstarch mixed in water at the end. Also, I had a similar problem with an extended time for natural pressure release, mine took 35 mins with a cold towel on the top for the last 10.
Love the recipe – I made it last week. I want to double this recipe for company tonight.
If you could help me out – do I double the liquid as well?? It sounds from what I read
I should use the same cooking time, just wanting to know about the liquid amounts
for doubling. Thank you!
Yes, I would double everything using the same ratio. Just be careful that you don’t over fill the Instant Pot. Check the instruction manual to be sure because over filling can be dangerous. While you can use the same setting it will likely take a bit longer because increasing the volume will mean that it will take longer to come up to pressure.
Thank you so much for the budget byte collections cookbook! I am cooking the instant pot beef stew recipe or supper tonight. It smells Delicious. I was looking through the book and am going to make 3 of your recipes this coming week!!
Again Thank you!!