Irish Beef Stew

One of our favorite meals for St. Patrick’s Day is this easy and delicious, Irish Beef Stew. It’s hard to describe in words the combination of mouth watering flavor in this simple Irish Beef Stew. Truly, a comfort dish and one that will quickly be your new family favorite! I have had the privilege of eating real, traditional Irish Lamb Stew once many years ago and this recreation tastes almost exactly like the original version, I just swapped the lamb stew meat out for a more budget friendly, and accessible beef stew meat.

I cooked my Irish Beef Stew in my six quart, Lodge enameled cast iron Dutch oven for two hours and the melding of flavors was incredible. The carrots and potatoes become so tender and the beef stew meat just melts in your mouth.

I make this Irish Beef Stew for dinner each St. Patrick’s Day and it’s always a big hit around our house. Do you celebrate St. Patrick’s Day? I have Irish and Dutch ancestry so we always celebrate that heritage in a small way each St. Patrick’s Day.

Let’s get started making this hearty Irish Beef Stew!

Drizzle a small amount of olive or coconut oil into an enameled cast iron Dutch oven to prevent the meat from sticking and allow the Dutch Oven to heat on medium high heat until hot. Place one pound (this package was 1.15 lbs) of lean stew meat in a six quart Dutch Oven and begin cooking the meat.

Stir the stew meat frequently to prevent sticking, and to ensure that the meat cooks evenly. This should take about fifteen minutes on medium high heat.

Once the meat is cooked, do not drain any grease that cooks out. This will give the stew a little extra flavor and serves as the magic elixir for this Irish Beef Stew, so leave the drippings!

Once the meat is cooked, add in thirty two ounces of beef broth.

The beef broth gives this Irish Beef Stew such a wonderful, hearty flavor!

Wash seven carrots and cut off each end. Use a potato peeler to peel the skin from the carrots and then slice into rounds.

Pour the sliced carrots into the Dutch Oven with the cooked stew meat and beef broth.

Time for the potatoes! Wash and peel four russet potatoes with a potato peeler and then cut into small chunks.

Add the potatoes into the Dutch oven with the beef stew meat, carrots, and beef broth.

Add on 10.5 ounce can of Golden Mushroom Soup to the Irish Beef Stew.

Now add in one 10.5 ounce can of Beefy Mushroom Soup to the beef stew.

Once the Golden Mushroom Soup and the Beefy Mushroom Soup has been added to the stew, stir it into the stew until it combines with the other ingredients.

Any other Worcestershire fans out there? I think Worcestershire makes everything taste better, so go ahead and add one tablespoon of this magic ingredient into this Irish Beef Stew.

Stir the Worcestershire sauce into the stew and then add in two heaping tablespoons of tomato puree.

Time to add in the sugar! Yes, I did say sugar. The sugar helps to draw out all of the hearty, delicious flavors in this Irish Beef Stew, so go ahead and pour one teaspoon of sugar into your stew.

Once the sugar has been added, use some herb scissors to snip in about 5-6 stems of fresh parsley (leaves only).

Time to add in the rest of your seasonings. You all know by now that I prefer to season by instinct and not using measurements. If you are new to cooking, I highly recommend you learn to season your food using your senses of smell, taste, and sight. This is a skill you will learn over time and it will make all of the difference in your home cooked meals. This is what your momma meant when she told you that she cooked with love. You learn to season your food according to your preferred tastes and the tastes of those you are cooking for when you learn to season and cook by instinct and not strictly by the recipe. If you are not comfortable seasoning by instinct just yet, a good guide for seasoning this Irish Beef Stew is starting out with 1/2 of a teaspoon of salt, ground black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, dried minced onion, and seasoned salt.

Once you have added in all of your seasonings, stir them into the stew until all is well combined and then give the stew a taste. At this point, you can add in a little more of each or one seasoning according to how you want the Irish Beef Stew to taste. It’s always best to err on the side of under seasoning than over seasoning because you can always add in more seasonings to get your food to taste just the way you like it, but you can never take any seasonings out. Remember, as the stew cooks the seasonings will become more robust and powerful so always keep that in mind when seasoning a dish before it is fully cooked. Sometimes it is best to wait to finish seasoning until after the dish cooks.

Once the Irish Beef Stew is seasoning to your liking, place the lid on the Dutch oven and resume cooking the stew on low heat for another 1 1/2 – 2 hours. You could always turn the heat up and finish cooking this beef stew much faster, however I recommend cooking the beef stew low and slow because it allows the stew to thicken and the flavors to blend and infuse every part of this stew with tender, hearty, deliciousness.

Once the stew is finished cooking, remove the lid and ladle out several bowls to cool before serving. You will be warmed and comforted by the hearty flavors in this dish, I can assure you! Allow the flavors of this hearty, Irish Beef Stew to take you on a journey to a land with rolling green hills and tall, stone castles. Hear those bagpipes? Feel the wind whipping off the moors? It’s almost as if you can taste a little piece of Ireland in this stew!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day my friends! May there always be a pot of gold at the end of your rainbows.

-Amy

Shared at Meal Plan Monday 

Shared at Weekend Potluck

Also shared at Foodie Friday Link Party