Beef Bourguignon

The scent of beef bourguignon simmering in your oven is nothing short of intoxicating. It’s enough to make you fall in love with this French stew long before you even take a bite. 

I first made beef bourguignon over a decade ago when I was in culinary school, and back then I made it many times over, as a means of nailing the techniques of searing then stewing the meat, and making a deeply flavorful, well-seasoned sauce. This recipe is inspired by the classic one that I learned in school, but with a few tweaks to make it as straightforward as possible for home cooks. The final result is a flavorful stew of ultra-tender chunks of beef and seared vegetables in a rich, velvety red wine sauce.

Beef bourguignon, or beef Burgundy, is a classic French beef stew made with onions (regular and pearl onions), carrots, mushrooms, and herbs, and simmered in a sauce of red wine and beef broth. It’s just as much about the impossibly tender chunks of beef as it is the deeply flavored sauce.

Boneless beef chuck roast is the best cut of beef to use for beef bourguignon. It’s a tough, inexpensive cut that benefits from a lengthy cooking time. Start with the full roast rather than pre-cut cubes of chuck roast or stew meat, which are often cut irregularly and are smaller than is ideal for this recipe. Here, the beef is seared on the stovetop and then simmered for several hours in the oven until it’s incredibly tender and falls apart at the touch of a fork. 

From the ingredient list to the cooking process, there are a lot of similarities between these two cozy stewed beef dishes. The main difference is that beef bourguignon uses a full bottle of red wine for the sauce, whereas beef stew calls for little to no wine. Additionally, beef bourguignon also typically includes bacon, pearl onions, and mushrooms.

• Thick-cut bacon. To maximize flavor, the fat gets rendered, then the beef gets seared in the bacon fat.
• Boneless beef chuck roast. This cut is flavorful, and after a lengthy cook time becomes positively tender. If the roast has any large pieces of fat on the outside, it’s helpful to trim off before searing the beef. 
• All-purpose flour. A couple of spoonfuls work to thicken the stew just enough so the sauce is lush and velvety. 
• Dry red wine. Pinot noir, cabernet, or merlot are all good choices here — you’ll use the whole bottle for this recipe. You don’t need to use anything pricey, but I advise against grabbing the cheapest bottle of wine on the shelf. Instead, choose a wine that you’d also enjoy drinking.
• Low-sodium beef broth. Along with wine, the broth makes up the rich, savory sauce.
• Pearl onions. Take your pick between fresh or frozen, as both work well here. When using fresh, I recommend grabbing a package of trimmed pearl onions to minimize prep work.
• Cremini mushrooms. No need to trim the stems. Just quarter the mushrooms, then sear in melted butter until deep brown all over.