Beef Stew is one of my husband’s favorite meals! When it is cold outside, he asks me to make it for him all the time. Usually I just sort of throw random ingredients together until everything tastes good, but this time I wrote down my ingredients so I could put it in a recipe post for you guys. This soup has a tomato-base to it and the barley makes it nice and thick. If you prefer, you could use potatoes instead of barley. I have tried using sweet potatoes before and those do not taste good in this recipe. Instead, stick with yukon gold or red potatoes cut into bite sized chunks.
Ingredients:
-1.5 lbs Beef Stew Meat (I usually get top round and just cut it into bite size pieces). Sometimes when you buy stew meat at the grocery store you still need to cut it into smaller pieces. I bought the meat in this picture at Costco and it was enough for a triple batch.
-1 large red onion, chopped
-Appx 8 medium sized carrots, peeled and sliced
-3-4 stalks of celery, sliced
-1.5 cups frozen corn (or you could use a 14.5 ounce can of canned corn)
-1 tsp parsley flakes
-1/4 tsp black pepper
-1.5 Tbsp “Better Than Bouillon” paste or 3 cubes of beef bouillon (can add more to taste if you like)
-3 garlic cloves minced
-1 14.5 ounce can tomato sauce
-3/4 cup barley (pearled)
-5 cups water
(This picture ^^ includes ingredients for a triple batch, but I accidentally left out a few ingredients from the picture (one of the tomato sauce cans, corn, etc) and didn’t use near that many carrots or celery. So, this isn’t an exact guide of what you will use, but more of a general idea) 🙂
This recipe is really simple to make! All you do is throw all your ingredients in the crockpot and cook for 3-4 hours on high or 6-8 hours on low.
If Making As Freezer Meal:
When I made this as a freezer meal, I put all the ingredients in except for the 5 cups of water. On the outside of the bag I just wrote the date, the name of the meal, and “add 5 cups water”. Make sure to push out any extra air in the bag to avoid freezer burn. The day before you want to make this meal take it out of the freezer and allow to defrost in your fridge. The morning/afternoon you want to eat the meal for dinner just put everything in your crockpot, add 5 cups water, and cook for 3-4 hours on high or 6-8 hours on low.
This will make extras – I just put my extras in a tupperware container and eat for lunch during the rest of the week.
I hope you enjoy this recipe!! If you decide to make it, leave a comment and let me know what you think! I love hearing feedback!
6 Comments
How long would you cook this on the stove, if not using a crocpot?
Hey Lauren! If you cook it on the stovetop (that’s how I did it this week), I would sear the meat first by just cooking it for a few minutes (5-6) so that all sides are lightly seared with salt, pepper, and garlic powder. Then I would add everything else and bring it to a slow boil for maybe 15-20 minutes or so. You can let it simmer for longer then that and the flavors will continue to develop.
I made this last night and my husband and I love it! I’m from Louisiana so I added Tony Cachere’s and it was delish. Thanks Natalie!
Awesome! I’m so glad you liked it! Thanks for commenting Julia and letting me know 🙂 I’m so bummed because when we transferred my website over to the new format, I lost all my blog comments and this one had 150+ comments. Oh well. I bet the Tony Cachere’s made it taste great! We live in SE Texas (Beaumont) and I’ve learned to really love cajun cooking since moving here.
Do you know what the serving size and approximate calories are per serving?
This may seem like a silly question but as a freezer meal do put all the raw ingredients in the bag raw and then freeze or do you cook it first and then freeze. Thanks!