Beef stew has always been a classic dinner dish, and for good reason – it’s a meal that’s relatively easy to prepare, tastes really good, and just gives off that homemade vibe to it. At least one family in your neighborhood or apartment probably cooks up some beef stew on a regular basis.
With the popularity of beef stew worldwide, it’s no surprise that the dish has seen many different variations – from the sauce used to cook it, the kind of beef meat used, and even the method of cooking. Eventually, someone came up with the idea of using red wine in this dish, and thanks to them we now have red wine beef stew – the usual beef stew with a little bit of alcohol and a whole lot of flavor.
And even with this niche, specialized form of beef stew, there is no single “perfect” recipe or method to prepare a batch of one. So instead of telling you how to cook up the best red wine beef stew known to man, we’re going to showcase some of the different ways you can prepare it.
Even with a single dish, recipes can differ greatly – for example, some recipes cook beef stew on a slow cooker, while others suggest using a Dutch oven instead. Finding the most suitable recipe on this list all depends on what suits your cooking preferences, as well as the ingredients and spices you prefer.
Table of Contents
Red Wine Beef Stew Recipes
Red Wine Beef Stew – Epicurious.com
We’re starting off this list with your “average” red wine beef stew. By “average”, I mean that this recipe is what you’d typically expect out of your red wine beef stew. No special ingredients, no fancy equipment – just the usual red wine beef stew many families at home cook.
The recipe serves about 8 people (or less if you really like the stuff yourself) and it takes a total active time of 30 minutes to prepare, with 3 hours being the total time it takes for everything to be complete. Note that you’ll be needing a Dutch Oven to cook this particular recipe, and many of the other recipes on this list use it too. If you’d rather use a slow-cooker instead, check out the next recipe instead.
Want to get started? Here’s the recipe.
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Slow-Cooker Red Wine Beef Stew – Delish.com
If you don’t have a Dutch Oven at home or you’d rather just cook your red wine beef stew with a slow-cooker, then this recipe should help you out. Using a slow-cooker will, as its name suggests, take some time. 4 hours and 40 minutes in total, to be exact since it doesn’t cook it as quickly as a Dutch Oven can.
Just like the previous recipe, this one, in particular, serves a total of 8 with a single batch. This recipe calls for 40 minutes of preparation time, a little longer than the 30 minutes of the first recipe. But with how easy it is to use a slow-cooker, it’s probably worth a bit more effort.
You can find the recipe for this version of red wine beef stew right here.
Red Wine Beef Stew With Carrots and Potatoes – Once Upon A Chef
So far, the recipes we’ve featured have definitely included carrots and potatoes in them. So, what makes this one, in particular, any special? Well, other than the usual ingredients expected of red wine beef stew, this particular website has some specifications for the meat in their recipe.
Instead of the stew meat you can purchase from supermarkets, the site suggests buying some chuck roast – particularly those that are well-marbled, or with a good amount of fat in them. In fact, the site states that stew meat is typically lean, and will only ruin the overall dish with its tough texture. And no, it won’t soften up over time, so you’re better off spending a little bit more for some quality tender meat.
Interested? Check out the recipe over here to learn more.
Red Wine Beef Stew – MyRecipes.com
With a pretty short preparation time of only 20 minutes and a cook time of just over 3 hours, this recipe is quicker to perform than the other recipes listed so far. The site lists a serving size of 6 to 8 people, so at least they’re taking into account people with hearty appetites this time around.
The completed dish as shown on the recipe’s picture, however, may put some of you off. It looks somewhat drier than the other dishes here – so if that’s not your thing, try checking out some of the other recipes. It could easily just be due to the camera angle, though – and in the worst-case scenario, adding a little more wine wouldn’t hurt, right?
Take a gander that this recipe here.
Red Wine Beef Stew – Fox and Briar
If you want to take your red wine beef stew to the next level, then this recipe over at Fox and Briar should do the trick. The site’s got a really detailed recipe on how to make yourself a batch of their version of the dish, so it’ll be pretty difficult for anyone with basic cooking knowledge to mess the entire recipe up.
The ingredients used in the recipe are also pretty specific, with Kosher salt and a yukon gold potato as some of its more quality examples. You know that the person who made this recipe really put their soul into making this dish. There’s even a detailed blog post dedicated to making the stew itself above the recipe.
If passionate recipes are your sort of thing, then check this recipe out.
Beef Stew in Red Wine Sauce – FoodandWine.com
A red wine beef stew recipe coming from a wine-focused website will definitely be a bit more picky on the wine used in the recipe, right? Well, that’s just the case in this one right here. FoodandWine.com’s recipe suggests dry wines as the ideal choice for cooking some red wine beef stew.
The serving size on this recipe is only good for 4, and the whole preparation time will cost you an hour. But the total time for making the dish is only 2 hours and 40 minutes, so if you’d rather not wait 3 hours or more for your stew to cook completely, then try out this recipe to save yourself some time.
Check this recipe out for yourself here.
Beef with red wine & carrots – BBC Good Food
Even BBC’s food website has its own version of the classic recipe. Even though the recipe’s title has no mention of stew whatsoever, don’t worry – it’s definitely the same red wine beef stew we’re finding recipes for. The site even suggests that the dish is reusable – if any are leftover, the stew can be used in pastas or pies.
Prep time for the dish is 30 minutes with the total time clocking in at just over 3 and a half hours. It’s good for 8 proportions, just like most of the other dishes here. And the website even labels this dish as “easy”, so anyone from novices to professionals can follow this recipe, at the very least.
Learn more about BBC’s take on the recipe here.
Old-Fashioned Beef Stew – NY Times Cooking
Ever wanted to cook up some red wine beef stew, like momma used to make it? While we can’t guarantee that this recipe is exactly the same as your mother’s cooking, this red wine beef stew recipe by NY Times is called old-fashioned, meaning that it’s a more traditional recipe than the others on the list.
With only 4 servings from this recipe, it’s small enough to cook for you and your partner, or for yourself, if you’re fine having beef stew over the course of the next few days. The recipe does scale pretty well, though, so if you’ ’re expecting guests you can just scale up the ingredients to get the same dish with more servings.
Visit this webpage to see what this recipe is all about.
Dutch Oven Beef Stew with Red Wine – The Salty Kitchen
Finishing up this list, we’ve got a very detailed recipe on making some red wine beef stew over at The Salty Kitchen. Every single detail, from how to blanch the onions, to the process of cooking the entire thing, is explained really darn well.
The whole process in this specific recipe does take a bit of time to complete, with three to four hours of braising and stewing in a Dutch Oven. But given that the resulting dish just looks so good, it’s probably worth trying out this recipe at least once.
Here’s the recipe.
Conclusion
Red wine beef stew has become more than just a good French dish – it’s now a comfort food that’s perfect for those cold winter days and nights, and can be a great meal to serve during the holidays. The recipes showcased here should give you, at the very least, some inspiration when making this dish yourself in the future.
