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.
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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Notes
Nutrition
Love Instant Pot Recipes? Check out my Pressure Cooker Chicken and Rice!
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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This is one of my all-time favorite Instant Pot recipes. I’ve been using my IP at least twice a week for the past 3 years, so I feel pretty competent, and seasoned enough to say that many recipes out there are not really tweaked correctly for pressure cooking. This one really does! The technique is spot on and really showcases the things that are great about the Instant Pot – starting the recipe off with saute mode, and then pressure cooking a cut of meat that would take so much longer with other cooking methods. And then there is the flavor profile! I never would have considered rosemary, thyme, soy sauce, brown sugar and Worcestershire sauce, but wow. I don’t usually even like rosemary, but it’s fantastic here. The tomato paste adds so much rich background flavor, to boot.
Anyway, just a vote of confidence, and a big thank you! This one is going into freezer containers as my Yankee Swap gift for our family exchange tomorrow. Our theme is “consumption” this year because no one needs more socks or flashlights, and I am 100% sure it will be much appreciated as the lucky winner takes this to work over the next few weeks. :)
Something must have gone wrong. I followed all directions but carrots were hard and meat not tender. Maybe it didn’t seal and pressure cook? I heard steam coming out of pressure valve despite it being on “Sealing” not “venting” I tried adding 10 min cooking on high pressure twice. Pot worked fine for brown rice last week. Weird.
Yes, it sounds like it didn’t seal properly. I’ve had this happen once or twice. What you want to watch is that little silver button on top that floats up and seals the steam closed when it gets up to the right temperature. Once in a while my silver button has gotten stuck and steam was pouring out the entire time. I find that if I giggle it with something long like a chopstick it will unstick, float up, and seal the pot, allowing the pressure to build.
Boyfriend took over the Instant Pot tonight for this one. We also added 1/2 can of beer to help tenderize the eye of round steak we used. Turned out delicious!
This was a tasty recipe but my potatoes and carrots came out mushy. :( what did I do wrong?
That’s the intended outcome for this stew. The softened vegetables help thicken the stew.
Canadian cooks – does anyone know where we can find frozen pearl onions?! I’ve never found them this side of the border. We have healthcare but no frozen pearl onions :)
Hahaha I’d take healthcare over pearl onions any day! :) Sometimes I see them fresh in our produce department as well, but if you can’t find them you can just dice a regular onion.
Can you freeze this?
Yes, you can freeze this. :)
Great recipe. Always searching for recipe that will taste like what my mother used to make. Close. Will definitely be making again.
Planning on trying it. Made roast chicken tonight. Was delicious.
will you share your recipe for Roast Chicken? That sounds yummy!
This may be a stupid question but when you say “close the steam valve” do you mean to keep the quick release valve up and sealed? My InstantPot is new and I don’t know the lingo!
I answered it for myself. On my new pot, the steam valve automatically closes when it is on high pressure! This was really terrific. I couldn’t find pearl onions, so I just used a regular one. Meat was tender and the stew was so flavorful!
Yep, I meant the knob that you turn to go from just steaming or slow cooking to actually pressure cooking (the one that closes off the opening). The little silver knob that automatically closes once it reaches pressure would be the float valve (because it “floats” up from the pressure). Glad you figured it out! :)
We have a 6 qt instant pot. I can’t tell what size you use in your demo, so don’t know if I can increase the recipe and still get it in my pot. So, how many quarts does your 6 person recipe require?
My IP is the 6 quart model as well. :)
Will the 6 qt model handle servings for 8 or 10? I just read that for high pressure, you shouldn’t fill it more than 2/3 full. Your recipe says the servings for 6 makes 10 cups, or 2 1/2 quarts. If the 2/3 max is correct then I could increase this to 4 quarts, or slightly below 10 servings.
I’m not a cook, so I may be way off on this. But does it sound reasonable?
That math sounds reasonable, but I can’t say for sure how much will fit. The size of your potatoes and beef roast will vary slightly, so doubling may be cutting it close.
I just doubled the recipe and it fit fine. I have the 6qt I believe. Haven’t tasted it yet, and was a bit harder to stir the meat evenly. But otherwise was fine.
Love this recipe. Do you ever add wine?
I don’t usually have any on hand, but you certainly could! I would add it after browning the beef, but before adding the broth. Use the wine to dissolve the browned bits off the bottom of the pot.
This is in the Instant Pot right now! I can already tell that it will be delicious. Thanks.
Fantastic recipe! Came out perfect. I doubled the recipe and deglazed with red wine before adding the broth. I also finished off by adding green peas. Highly recommend this.
Great tip!
When you double a recipe do you need to add more time?
The instant pot may take longer to come up to pressure, and to depressurize after cooking, but the actual cooking time at high pressure will remain the same. :)
This was only the 2nd time I used my Instant Pot and this was by far the best beef stew that I have had and/or made. I will definitely make this again but I think I may tweak it a little the next time I make it to suite my families taste,
This was great! I doubled it and my family loved it. I sautéed the mushrooms before adding it to the pot and added 3/4 cup of red wine to deglaze the pot with the broth. It was perfect. Next time I may add a 1/2 pound more meat and a few more potatoes. Thanks for the recipe. It’s a keeper!. I have an 8 qt. instant pot.