Recipe Review

Serious Eats’ Beef Stew Recipe Has Some Smart Tricks for Serious Umami Depth

published Jan 3, 2023
We independently select these products—if you buy from one of our links, we may earn a commission. All prices were accurate at the time of publishing.
Serious Eats beef stew recipe in a bowl
Credit: Photo: Julia Gartland; Food Styling: Barrett Washburne; Prop Styling; Anne Eastman

Serious Eats’ beef stew has a lot of tricks up its sleeve. That’s because it comes from the master of coaxing maximum flavor out of ingredients, J. Kenji López-Alt. A blended mix of chicken stock, tomato paste, anchovies, unflavored gelatin, soy sauce, and Worcestershire sauce lends ultra umami depth and helps thicken the stew. A large chuck roast is cut into steaks, browned on two sides, then cut into cubes, which results in well-browned but still-moist meat. Finally, using one batch of whole veggies flavors the broth and meat as they slowly simmer, while another batch that’s cut smaller, browned, and cooked for a shorter amount of time retain some texture in the stew. Would all of these steps be worth the effort? I was eager to find out.

How to Make Serious Eats’ All-American Beef Stew

Buckle up, folks. This one is a bit more involved than your typical beef stew recipe. You’ll start by combining chicken stock, tomato paste, anchovies, unflavored gelatin, soy sauce, and Worcestershire in a blender and blitzing until homogenous. 

You’ll then brown your chuck roast steaks (you cut a 3-pound roast into 3 steaks) in oil in a Dutch oven, remove them from the pot, and add mushrooms to the pot to cook until browned. You’ll add diced carrots and pearl onions and cook those until browned; these come out of the pot and are set aside.

Next, you’ll brown a halved onion and whole carrots, celery stalks, and garlic. You’ll stir in some wine and reduce it by three-fourths. Now the blended broth mixture goes into the pot, and you’ll bring it to a simmer, then remove the pot from the heat.

At this point, you’ll cut the seared steaks into chunks and toss them with flour. This meat mixture goes into the pot, along with bay leaves and thyme sprigs. You’ll place the pot, partially covered, in a 300°F oven and cook for about 1 1/2 hours. 

You’ll remove the pot from the oven and discard the onion halves and whole carrots, celery stalks, bay leaves, thyme sprigs, and garlic cloves. Cubed, peeled Yukon golds then go into the pot, along with the mushroom-carrot-pearl onion mixture. The pot goes back into the oven to cook, again partially covered, for about an hour. 

The final step is to simmer the stew over a burner, if necessary, to reduce the liquid to your desired consistency (I didn’t need to do this), then stir in frozen green peas.

Credit: Photo: Julia Gartland; Food Styling: Barrett Washburne; Prop Styling; Anne Eastman

My Honest Review of Serious Eats’ All-American Beef Stew

The stew ended up with a deep, rich, concentrated beefy flavor — those umami bombs certainly did their job. The broth was thick but not gloppy, with a full, weighty mouthfeel. It was delicious. But the overall process felt a little fussy. Yes, all of the steps lead you to a great end result, but, as I discovered, some simpler recipes also deliver spectacular results.  

Credit: Photo: Julia Gartland; Food Styling: Barrett Washburne; Prop Styling; Anne Eastman

If You’re Making Serious Eats’ All-American Beef Stew, a Few Tips

  1. Brown in batches. The chuck roast steaks will have more surface area than a single chuck roast, so make sure that you don’t crowd the pot when you’re browning them. Unless you have a very large pot, you’ll most likely need to brown in two batches.
  2. Make sure the broth is bubbly. When you place the pot in the oven, you cook the stew partially covered at 300°F, maintaining a simmer. The recipe instructs you to “adjust oven temperature if necessary during cooking,” and I did have to bump it up to 315°F to hold a simmer. 
  3. Cut potatoes to a good size. The recipe calls for the Yukon golds to be “peeled and cubed.” Make sure that your cubes aren’t too large, maybe an inch max. Think of what would work well as a bite on your spoon. 

Overall rating: 8.5/10