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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I have the Instant Pot Ultra and it keeps saying BURN…….. So frustrating….
FANTASTIC! best stew I’ve ever made. I agree with the others….if you want a thicker “gravy” lessen liquids or use a thickener. My family loved this so much that after dinner, I made the whole stew again for another meal!
Cooked up a batch last night and it is very good. I added some extra spices and Worcestershire to the final product to kick it up a notch. I really appreciated this recipe, pictures, and comments from others. I agree with an earlier comment that the carrots came out a little mushy for my tastes and I will be adjusting the recipe to deal with that. Thanks everyone!
Why can’t I PRINT this recipe?
The print button is right under the thumbnail image on the recipe card. It will open the recipe by itself in a new browser tab so it can easily be printed.
I really wish the recipe would have mentioned at the beginning or in the ingredients that the meat should be cubed. I just bought some beef round at the store, didn’t know that stew meat was different! I didn’t find out until I scrolled all the way to the bottom and saw the pictures, and the stew is already all in the cooker. Hope it still turns out!
Made this with only a couple changes. I doubled the beef (feeding three boys) and therefore doubled the flour. Everything else I kept exactly the same. I have a 6QT Duo Instant Pot and cooked on high pressure for 25 minutes, then NR for 20 minutes. It came out great! Next time I would add a bit more salt, but the soup was thick and yummy! I think that doubled beef and flour helped thicken it up in the end… I’ll be making this again using that time adjustment!
4 stars only because it could use a little help with overall flavor — but I still recommend it! Very kid friendly too :)
The flavor was very good with this recipe. At 35 minutes for cooking, however, I thought the vegetables turned soggy. I would try to cook at maybe 25 minutes for added texture to the carrots, mushrooms and potatoes. If you like your stews more stewy, less like soup, you may lessen the liquids or add a thickener. You’ll find that the leftovers taste better!
Thank you for sharing this recipe. I made this tonight as we were experiencing an exceptionally cold wintry night. I pretty much followed the recipe, except I used 2 parts beef broth and 1 part chicken broth. The reason being is to avoid high amounts sodium. Unsalted chicken broth is widely available whereas unsalted beef broth is very rare. Overall, the flavor is subtle, yet rich buttery flavor. I did add an essence of demi-glace for richer flavor to pair with the Jordan 2014 Cabernet, which pared beautifully. I must confess, I cooked the carrots separately to my preferred doneness as I had a feeling that it was going to get overcooked in IP. Worked out very well as I added once IP was done. Subtly rich, overall well balanced flavor. Merci.
What about using sweet potatoes unstead of regular potatoes?
You could do that. :)
made this the other night. doubled the recipe and added a few more potatoes, fresh Rosemary and some left over purple cabbage for color. my wife and grandkids thought it was awesome. the stew was thick and very good.
I loved it. Very flavorful. Thanks!
I left out the mushrooms because my husband hates them, and I was out of Worcestershire sauce, but other than that I followed the recipe pretty closely. It was really good. I think next time I’ll do a quck pressure release so the vegetables are a little firmer (the onions were falling apart, and I always think they’re the best part of a stew) and stir a cornstirch slurry in so the liquid’s a little thicker. If I do a quick pressure release, will the meat still be nice and tender?
Thank you for this! I looked at about 10 recipes for IP beef stew before realizing that the Budget Bytes version would be the clear winner, as usual. I’ve never had a recipe fail when cooking one of your offerings.
Very tasty, but my carrots turned out way too mushy. I will try it again, but maybe do a quick pressure release instead.
Raves all round! Came out a bit watery, but my brother in law loved it so much he drank the juices from the bowl.