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This is the recipe that turns a Sunday afternoon into a religious experience. Beef chunks browned hard, onions softened until they’re sweet, then everything drowned in a can of Guinness and left to do nothing on the stove for two hours. The whole house smells like a pub on a Tuesday afternoon, in the best possible way.

It’s a winter recipe. Make it on a cold weekend when there’s nowhere to be and the kitchen window’s foggy. Eat it with mashed potato, with a crusty loaf, or straight from the pot at 11pm in your trackies. There is no wrong serving suggestion here.

The two non-negotiables

Brown the beef properly. Don’t crowd the pot. Wet beef steams. Steamed beef tastes like wet beef. Crisp, browned beef builds the foundation for the whole dish. Three or four batches is fine. Patience here pays back tenfold in the gravy.

Use stout, not lager. Guinness is the classic, any local stout works. The roasted-malt bitterness rounds out the sweetness from the carrots and brown sugar. Lager makes the gravy taste flat. IPA makes it taste like cleaning fluid. Stout only.

Scotty Boxa

Beef and Guinness Stew

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Deep, dark, slow-cooked beef stew with Guinness, root veg, and the patience of a saint. Australian winter in a single pot.
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Prep Time 25 minutes
Cook Time 3 hours
Total Time 5 minutes
Ingredients Method Nutrition Notes

Ingredients
 

  • 1.2 kg beef chuck steak, cubed about 2.5 lb
  • 3 tbsp plain flour
  • 3 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 brown onions, roughly chopped
  • 4 cloves garlic, crushed
  • 3 carrots, thick chunks
  • 2 sticks celery, sliced
  • 500 g baby potatoes, halved
  • 2 tbsp tomato paste
  • 440 ml Guinness stout one can
  • 500 ml beef stock
  • 3 sprigs fresh thyme
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 tbsp brown sugar
  • salt and pepper to taste

Instructions
 

Method
  1. Toss the beef cubes in flour with a generous pinch of salt and pepper. Heat 2 tbsp olive oil in a heavy pot or dutch oven over medium-high heat. Brown the beef in batches, about 3 minutes per batch. Don't crowd the pot. Set aside.
  2. Add remaining oil, then the onions. Cook 5 minutes until soft. Add garlic, carrots, celery. Cook another 4 minutes.
  3. Stir in tomato paste. Cook 1 minute. Pour in the Guinness, scraping the bottom of the pot to lift the brown bits.
  4. Return beef to the pot. Add stock, thyme, bay leaves, and brown sugar. Bring to a simmer. Cover and reduce heat to low.
  5. Simmer covered for 2 hours. Add the potatoes and continue another 30 to 45 minutes until the potatoes are tender and the beef falls apart at a touch.
  6. Taste, adjust salt and pepper. Fish out the bay leaves. Serve over creamy mashed potato or with crusty bread to mop up the dark gravy.

Nutrition

Calories: 540kcal

Notes

Day-after rule. This stew is better the next day. Make Sunday, eat Monday.
Slow cooker version. Brown beef and onions on the stove, then transfer everything to a slow cooker for 7 hours on low.
Booze swap. Stout works (Murphy's, Guinness, any local stout). Don't use IPA, the bitterness wrecks the gravy.
Servings: 6 people
Calories: 540

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What to serve it with

Mashed potato is the obvious pick. Bread is the lazy pick. Bread is also the right pick if it’s the only one you’ve got. A crusty sourdough or a soft white roll, torn in half and used as a vehicle for gravy, is genuinely one of the great food experiences and anyone who tells you otherwise is wrong.

Add a green vegetable if you’re trying to be a person. Steamed greens, peas, a quick side salad. The stew doesn’t need it. You probably do.

Leftovers freeze beautifully for up to three months. Portion in single-serve containers and label them, because by week three you’ll forget what was in there.

I’m Scotty Boxa. Australian author, professional bad decision maker, and the bloke responsible for the rest of this website.

If this stew got you through a cold weekend, the rest of Heat & Serve will get you through a winter. 25 soup and stew recipes, all written like this one.