You’ll love the rich, deep flavor of this Italian Beef Stew and the ease of making it in your Instant Pot or Slow Cooker.
I’ve had an Instant Pot sitting in my closet for six months and I finally decided it was time to get it out and give it a try. I think secretly, I was scared of it. It is a pressure cooker after all and pressure cookers are scary. I also needed to read the instruction book and that is always an obstacle for me. I just don’t do instruction books. I’m one of those people that just likes to figure things out or ask someone to explain it to me but reading the instructions just takes too long. But I decided I better read the instructions on this one and I learned a couple of things, the instant pot is not scary and it’s a really quick way to get dinner on the table.
What is an Instant Pot? It is basically a electric pressure cooker with a stainless steel pot. The Instant Pot is the pressure cooker of the 21st Century .
Cooking in a pressure cooker takes about an hour. You need about 20 minutes to get the cooker up to pressure and then it cooks for 30 minutes. But once your ingredients are in the pot, you are free to do something else and just leave the Instant Pot to do it’s thing. One of the great things about the Instant Pot is that you can use the saute feature and brown the meat before adding the other ingredients. No need to dirty another pan. The Instant Pot also works as a slow cooker so if you want dinner ready in 4-6 hours use it that way or you can use this recipe in your regular slow cooker too.
You can use your favorite meat based slow cooker recipes in the Instant Pot. If the slow cooker recipe cooks 8 hours on low or 4 hours on high, it will pretty much be cooked just right in 25-30 minutes in the pressure cooker (after it comes to pressure). Just use the Meat/Stew button for red meats and Poultry button for chicken. A pressure cooker needs at least 1 cup of liquid to get to pressure so you may need to make an adjustment to a slow cooker recipe if it calls for less than 1 cup of liquid, just add more liquid!
This stew uses stew meat, carrots, potatotes, beef broth and tomato paste along with springs of your favorite fresh herbs. I used rosemary, thyme and oregano. I just put the whole springs right into the pressure cooker. Just remove the stems from the stew before serving. No one likes twigs in their stew. The stew came out perfectly cooked, the carrots and potatoes weren’t too mushy, they were just right and the flavor was deep and rich.
I purchased my Instant Pot on Amazon. Watch for more Instant Pot recipes coming soon but in the meantime, check out some of these:
Creamy Buffalo Chicken for Instant Pot from Foodie with Family
Chipotle Shredded Beef {Instant Pot } from Taste and Tell
Instant Pot Low Carb Loaded Cauliflower Soup from Kalyn’s Kitchen
Printable Recipe for Italian Beef Stew for the Instant Pot
- 2 lbs. stew meat
- 1 Tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 cup onion chopped
- 4 red potatoes cut into 1 inch pieces
- 4 tsp garlic minced
- 1 6 oz. can tomato paste
- 3 carrots peeled and cut into 1/2" pieces
- 3 cups beef broth
- 1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
- Sprigs of thyme oregano and rosemary
- Turn Instant Pot to saute, add oil and when it is hot add the meat meat in a single layer and brown.
- Add in remaining ingredients, stir and close the lid then close the steam valve. Press the "Meat/Stew" button and allow the cooker to naturally cool and release pressure.
- Once the pressure has released, open the steam valve then carefully open the lid. Give the stew a good stir, taste, and adjust the salt if needed.
- Brown meat in oil in a pan.
- Add meat to slow cooker along with other ingredients. Stir to combine.
- Cook on high for 4 hours or low for 6 hours.
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This looks delicious! I can see by the photos that you used potatoes but don’t see them listed in the recipe. Did you use red potatoes and do those cook better than russets? I’ve had an Instant Pot for several months. I’ve made hard boiled eggs several times with great success. Overall, the cooking time is about the same as stove-top, but they do seem to peel better with the steaming versus boiling.
I’ve also made vegetable soup using ground beef. I’ve made it twice, because I wanted to see if less grease was drawn out of the cooked beef if I browned it in a skillet first (I know, another pan to dirty when there’s a saute function on the Instant Pot). It was much less greasy because I drained the skillet-browned meat on paper towels before cooking everything in the Instant Pot. Next time I’ll try browning in the Instant Pot and draining on paper towels instead of trying to de-grease with a bulb baster.
. I made this just this afternoon and it was delicious. I still have y old fashioned pressure cooker and although the new one looks so much easier i hate to give up the old one that works great.
Try a bit of cloves and a bay leaf or two with the garlic and thyme for a different flavor profile. Makes a great appetizing smell as well as a great flavor.