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In this recipe, we’re going to make a beef stew. This is a great option for a cold day and is pretty easy to make a big batch for freezing and using later.

Now we know that beef can be expensive to buy and may not be everyone’s choise. There are, of course, vegetarian meat alternatives that you can use. Or you can use mushrooms as both a cheaper and vegetarian alternative.

If you want to reduce costs, but still use beef, you can reduce the amount of beef we have listed in the ingredients below and use the the same weight in mushrooms. So there are options there.

The prep for this recipe will probably take between 10-15 minutes. If you’re cooking in a slow cooker, the cooking time will be between 4 to 8 hours. On the hob, it will be more like an hour. We’re going to show you how to make this recipe in a slow cooker, but you can do this on the hob as well.

The ingredients are listed in the video description below. But you can see we have some onions, celery and carrots. Some beef and mushrooms. And of course some herbs and other seasonings, so thyme, bay leaves, worcestershire sauce, tomato puree, stock cubes (and alternative), and some oil.

All ingredients should be laid out on the surface.

You will also want a large saucepan with a lid or slow cooker, a frying pan, some measuring spoons and jug, a knife for chopping, a chopping board and a wooden spoon or some other utensil for stirring.

All the equipment should be laid out on the counter at this point.

We’ll start with chopping the veg. So we’re going to chop up the onions, celery and carrots.

Most of this should already be pre-chopped. Maybe just have half of each to “finish” chopping.

There are gadgets that can help with this. For example, this chopping board will hold an item still for you while you chop it up, which can be really helpful if you’ve got limited or no mobility in one hand. Alternatively, you can buy a lot of veg pre-chopped now, either fresh or frozen. Sometimes this is more expensive though, so not always the best option.

Demonstrate if possible.

Ok, back to our onions and things. You can chop these as rough or as fine as you like. It is up to you.

Taking a break in most recipes is fine, you just want to make sure you plan it so you aren’t taking a break when you’re in the middle of frying something, for example.

If you are going to take a break after chopping these, I would recommend putting the celery and onions into one bowl or container. And then the carrots in another. It will make things easier when you come to cook these.

I like to cover carrots with water and pop them in the fridge. But I’d just pop a lid on the onion and celery. Just to keep them from drying out.

If you are using mushrooms or your beef isn’t pre-cut, this is a good time to cut that up as well. I prefer to do all of this at once, but you can always do this in stages the day before.

Beef and mushrooms will already be cut up, but still raw.

My beef is already in pieces and now our veg is chopped, so I’ll just move on to frying.

We’ll start by hearing some oil and adding the onions and celery to this. You want to fry this on a low heat for about 5 minutes. Just until they start to soften.

Now we’ll add the carrots, some bay leaves and our thyme. You can use dried if you can’t get or don’t want to use fresh.

That will carry on frying for about 2 minutes just to release the flavour. When you’re done, tip everything into your big pot or slow cooker. Try to leave the oil if you can and hang on to that frying pan. We’re going to use it in a little bit, so don’t wash it up yet.

Now we can stir in the tomato puree and the Worcestershire sauce. If you are looking to reduce how much salt you are eating, Worcestershire sauce is actually quite high in salt. We’re just using 1 teaspoon to get that richness in and 1 tsp is plenty for that.

If you need to take a break, this is another good point to do so. Just pop the lid on and don’t turn anything on.

When you’re ready to go on to the next step, you’ll pour 300ml of boiling water over this and stir it up. Then we season.

You can crumble half a stock cube to add a bit more richness.

Yes, stock cubes are really high in salt. I’m using a low sodium variety and adding some ground black pepper.

We’re going to now put the beef or mushrooms into our frying pan, browning it in batches. Once each batch is done, we add it straight to our slow cooker or pan.

Need to actually brown all the beef at this stage--but don’t need to see it all on the video

So now everything is ready to go. We just turn the heat up.

In your slow cooker, you can cook on low for 8-10 hours. Or on high for 4 hours.

If you’re cooking on the hob, make sure you cover it and bring it up to bubble. Then stick with a relatively low heat for at least an hour. Make sure you come back to stir occasionally.

With the slow cooker, we just switch it on and leave it.

If you do want to double this recipe, maybe if you’re having family over, you can do that without needing to change the cooking times at all.

And now we’re back. It’s been just over four hours and you can see how that sauce has thickened.

When you’re ready to serve, you can add a bit of parsley and I tend to like this with a few slices of thick crusty bread. Or you can go with mash or just boiled potatoes. Whatever you feel like.

Of course. If you want to save this and freeze it for future meals, I would suggest putting it into your containers and leaving it to cool before freezing. When you’re ready to re-heat, pop it on the hob or in the microwave and heat it up slowly. You may need to add a touch of water to help it along.

After you freeze it, I would recommend using it within ?? months.

And that’s our beef stew. Let us know in the comments if you’ve tried it out yourself or if you have any questions.

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