This Instant Pot Beef Stew is the easiest beef stew you’ll ever find – and it’s delicious! See more pressure cooker meals here, too!
Instant Pot Beef Stew
Instant Pots are all the rage and it’s no wonder, considering how busy we are in our day to day lives. If you can have the pressure cooker make a beef stew recipe or another amazing dinner in one eighth of the amount of time that it normally takes – I’d say that that means you’re winning. Right?
I (along with half of the US I think) received an Instant Pot this year. And, it sat on my countertop until I had the guts to give it a try.
And, so begins a true love with my newest kitchen appliance. I admit, I totally love this machine. My family loves hearty dinners and the Instant Pot is the queen of making hearty meals, right?
This pot beef stew recipe is incredibly simple. If you’re looking for pressure cooker recipes to make first or recipes to make first in the Instant Pot, this is an awesome recipe. Dare I say it was my first of many more pressure cooker recipes to come?! Sure was!
Here’s how I whipped this Beef Stew recipe up:
First, combine your flour, thyme, salt and freshly ground black pepper in a bowl and toss that pretty good. This is the mixture that you’ll be placing your bite sized pieces of the stew meat in to. I can usually get a pound of the beef stew meat for around $5, and the remainder of ingredients for about $1, so this dinner works out to about $1.50 a serving. Amazing, and wallet friendly, too? Win-win I’d say!
Next, you’ll want to wash and chop your potatoes. Pretty big chunks, you can always cut them smaller after the pressure cooker is done cooking, right? I used baby carrots for this beef stew recipe, but you could certainly peel and use regular size carrots, cutting them into baby size carrots “size” at this point as well. And, about a quarter of an onion, more or less to your liking. I cut those pieces up pretty small as I have some pretty picky eaters.
At this point, you’re ready to assemble the beef stew. Toss your flour and spice coated beef stew bite sized pieces into your Instant Pot. Next, your potatoes, then carrots and onion.
Pour the beef broth over the beef stew mixture, add in a tsp of minced garlic and your ready to seal the lid. Press the stew/meat button and you’re off to the races. Total cooking time for this recipe is 90 minutes for the Instant Pot to come to pressure, for the stew to cook and for the steam valve to go down once it’s reaeased the pressure.
You never want to open the lid of the pressure cooker until the valve has gone down.
Here’s the full Instant Pot beef stew recipe that our family loves:
Instant Pot Beef Stew:
Instant Pot Beef Stew
Ingredients
- 6 red potatoes smaller ones
- 1/4 onion sliced
- 5 carrots or about 20 baby carrots
- 1 cup beef broth
- 1 pound beef stew meat
- 1/2 tsp salt
- fresh ground black pepper
- 3 T Flour
- 1 t Leaf Thyme
- 1 clove garlic minced
- ** 2 T cornstarch plus a teaspoon of water
Instructions
- Roughly chop your potatoes, carrots and onion, set aside.
- In a medium size bowl, combine flour, salt, pepper, thyme and mix.
- Add the bite size pieces of stew meat to the bowl of flour and toss until completely covered.
- Set the beef into the Instant Pot sell bowl (the one that comes out, never put anything into the main unit)
- Add your potatoes, carrots and onion.
- Pour the beef broth in and add your garlic.
- Make sure the vent is set to "sealing" and select the "stew/meat" setting on the Instant Pot. Total this will take about an hour to come to pressure and cook. The natural release of pressure will take about 25 minutes.
- Once the Pressure Cooker is finished, and the steam valve is down, unlock the lid, open the unit and give it a good stir. Combining the cornstarch and water and adding this mixture will give your stew a creamier texture, making it perfect with a slice of french bread.