Beef Stew Recipe

I consider my husband a meat and potatoes connoisseur. He goes bonkers over these types of meals and will always rate my dinners.

This beef stew recipe always gets a full ten stars, and it is on the winter soup dinner rotation for good now because he loves it so much.

If you’re after beef crock pot dinners, this is the recipe you need!

Old Fashioned Beef Stew Recipe

Winter Sundays are meant for crock pots around our house. Between church, basketball and getting ready for a full week ahead, I’m always looking for the best easy crock pot dinners that the entire family will love, and this dinner never disappoints!

Chock full of veggies, barley and stew meat, this is sure to put the “comfort” in comfort food.

And, since it’s a crock pot dinner, it moves straight to the top of the list when I need an easy dinner idea.

Here’s how I make this Beef Stew in a Crock Pot:

Gather all of the ingredients:

2 lb. stew meat
1/2 T vegetable oil
1 Tbsp Salt
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/4 tsp pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder
2/3 cup diced carrots
2 stalks celery diced
2 Russet potatoes peeled and diced into 1/2 inch squares
46 oz tomato juice
2 cups chicken broth
1 bay leaf
1/2 T sugar
1/2 cup quick barley (if you use regular barley, that would need to go in with vegetables)

The key to this stew is browning the stew meat prior to throwing this all in the crock pot together — my best advice is to not skip this step – it’s pretty darn important! Before browning the stew meat, season all of the pieces of meat, give a good stir to coat the meat, and then brown in a pan. I LOVE the Ninja Crock Pot for this as this crock pot allows you to use the stove top function to brown the meat, and then turn the pan onto the slow cooker function to finish cooking.

Once all of the stew meat is slightly browned on all sides, add all of the tomato juice to the stew meat. Stir in the chicken broth, all of the vegetables, the sugar and the bay leaf. Add the lid and cook on low for 7 hours. This is where the magic comes in!

Once the soup has cooked on low for 7 hours, add barley and let the mixture meld together for one more hour.

After hours and a house that undoubtedly smells delicious, your soup is ready to go – take the bay leaf out and serve the stew in bowls with a warm buttered roll or crackers crumbled on top. Enjoy!