This Slow Cooker Italian Beef Stew recipe is one of my favorite easy comfort food meals. With tender meat, vegetables, tomatoes (and a little bit of wine for good measure!) this tastes fantastic served over potatoes, pasta or polenta with a nice, crusty piece of bread!
1tsp.of salt + some extra for seasoning your meat and veggies
½tsp.of pepper + some extra for seasoning your meat and veggies
½tsp.of Italian seasoning
1bay leaf
1cupof Italian flat beansor green beans
1cupof peas
Instructions
Heat 1 Tbsp. of olive oil over medium-high heat in a saute pan.
Add your Pancetta and saute, stirring frequently until nicely browned, around 3 minutes.
Add your carrots, onions, garlic and mushrooms to the pan with the Pancetta and season with a little salt and pepper to taste. Saute for around 7 minutes until the veggies have softened, stirring periodically.
While those are cooking, lay out your stew beef. Pat it dry and season it lightly with salt and pepper.
Combine the beef in a bowl with your flour until well coated. Set aside.
When the veggies and Pancetta have softened a bit, remove them from the pan (pour it into your slow cooker) and add the other Tbsp. of olive oil to the saute pan.
Tap the excess flour off of your pieces of beef into your bowl that the beef and flour were combined in (there will be extra flour left in the bowl, save this for a later step) and place them into the hot pan. Brown them until all sides have a nice sear on them.
Once they're nicely browned, add your wine and use a wooden spoon to scrape all the brown bits off the bottom of your pan. Let it simmer for a minute or two.
Add the beef and wine into your slow cooker.
Take your bowl containing the leftover flour (from the beef) and whisk in the beef broth to combine. Add this to the slow cooker along with the tomato paste, diced tomatoes, 1 tsp. of salt, ½ tsp. of pepper, the Italian seasoning and the bay leaf.
Cover and cook on low for around 8 hours. Add your flat beans and peas for the last hour of cooking.
Enjoy!
Notes
This tastes great served over Polenta, egg noodles or smashed potatoes, Make sure you serve it with plenty of crusty bread for dipping!
If you don't feel like doing extra cooking, you can always put all the ingredients (minus the oil) into the slow cooker and cook it on low for 8 hours adding the flat beans and the peas during the last hour of cooking. I encourage you to take the extra steps if you can, because it develops the flavor even more.
A brilliant readers commented below that they added 1 Tbsp. cornstarch to ⅛ cup of water and added it with the beans and peas for a thicker gravy. I thought this was such an excellent idea that I had to add a note to the recipe. Thanks Kit! :)