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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At age 60, I have made a lot of stew in my day. But I must say this is one of the best I’ve ever tasted!
The only thing I did, after it was done cooking, was to put it on saute and then I added a slurry of 2 tsps corn starch, plus 1 tsp unflavored gelatin in 3 TBSP of cold water. Then I added slurry to boiling stew, while stirring constantly until the stew was thickened. It needs constant stirring to avoid burning the bottom of pan.
This will be my go-to Electric Pressure Cooker stew recipe from now on. Simply delicious! Thank You!
Hi I made this beef stew tonite, and it was the first time i used my instant pot. It was a success!! I did not use the mushrooms, however but I did chop up some celery. Other changes were after the flour stew meat was browned I removed it from the pan and deglazed it with some red cooking wine, then returned the stew meat. (I was concerned about the pot getting yucky). Then I followed your recipe using the stew pre programmed button, and watched what occurred. I did a quick release as ppl in my house are hungry.. lol… it came out great.. I have the 6 qt but now I’m thinking shoot, maybe i should have gotten 8 quart!! I am used to leftovers.. i will use this recipe again. It cooked for about 35 minutes and everything was perfect… I just hope I can find more recipes for using the instant pot (I HAD TO HAVE IT LOL)
I enjoyed this stew as well thank you. It was my first experience with an IP and I appreciated your clear steps.
The potatoes don’t get mushy ? I would’ve thought that the meat and the potatoes would have different cook times .
They do, and that helps thicken the stew. I guess that’s just the way that I like my stews to be. :)
i did not find my potatoes that mushy, yes they were soft but I do not care for hard potatoes anyhow .. they weren’t mushy though ….. I cut them a bit bigger than i usually do.
Made it per recipe but when it started to cook, the BURN indicator came on. Dumped it out, cleaned the pot, poured it back in and started over, in five more minutes the BURN indicator was back on. The third time the BURN indicator came on I threw it all in a casserole dish and just put it in the oven. How o you keep it from burning?
My IP doesn’t have a burn indicator, so I’m not sure what might have been causing that to go off. With all of that liquid in the pot and if you dissolve the browned bits off the bottom after adding the broth, I’m not sure what could even be burning.
Other blogs say not to use flour on meat, and that tomatoes will cause same problem. I stirred mine rather than leave all the vegies on top, and that might have been a problem as well. Smells good but might have to finish in oven. I stirred it and restarted pressure, and am waiting to see what results!
Was that while you were browning the meat on saute or after putting all the ingredients in and starting the pressure cooking?
I’m having the same problem… SO FRUSTRATING… not really sure what to do now
Did you de-glaze the bottom of the pot after you sautéed the beef? If you left bits stuck to the bottom that can cause the burn indicator to come on.
I have the SAME problem. I think it’s the flour, it’s just settleing and sticking to the bottom. Super frustrating. Followed resicpe exactly and I DID de-glaze. Dumped the contents, cleaned the pot, tried again and got the burn signal again. I have the InstaPot brand. I’m going to try the recipe again without the flour and see if that changes it. Currently have it on the slow cooker setting and it’s not giving me the burn message. So we’ll see!
This was very good! I added a little extra beef broth because I threw in celery and used an entire yellow onion instead of the pearls. Very good taste, thank you!
Delicious! i doubled the recipe and still used 35 mins high pressure on stew. Perfect!
This was so good!!! Thank you so much! If it helps anyone else, the substitutions I made because of what I did/didn’t have in my pantry were: sweet potato instead of regular potato, a large sweet onion cut up instead of pearl onions, Tamari instead of soy sauce, maple syrup instead of brown sugar, and mostly coconut flour instead of regular flour. I imagine this still tastes pretty close to the original recipes, and it was outstanding! Easy for my toddler to eat too. This will be on our winter rotation for sure.
This is the BEST beef stew. I did use sirloin tips and then followed the recipe. I forgot the silicone seal and didn’t pick up on it until the end. I checked the stew, it was done. Really like this!!!!
I made this tonight — my first IP attempt — and my family loved it. Thanks for the recipe and clear, easy-to-follow directions!
Very tasty recipe and the first meal prepared in our new Instant Pot. Definitely deserves five stars.
Disappointing
What was disappointing about it, can you elaborate?
I am cooking this now and noticed that the steam valve wasn’t fully closed until I had about 20 minutes left to cook it. I’m wondering what I should do? Should I just see how it comes out after the steam valve releases and cook it for 15 more minutes if it isn’t done? I’m a challenged cook here so would appreciate any advice :)
That’s weird. The timer on the IP shouldn’t start counting down unless the steam valve has closed. I’m not sure how that would have happened.
Mmm wow, this is DELICIOUS! I was a little worried I wouldn’t have enough broth that I’d like so I added some more along with some salt and pepper. Man, it’s good!
This made the best beef stew that I ever made!!! Thanks! I added Hungary Paprika and a little Ceyenne pepper and they gave it a little kick!