Like my bean soup for the Instant Pot, beef and bean stew is a favorite in our house, especially for large gatherings! This Tuscan stew will win over any crowd.
I know it’s pretty standard to serve a big old hunk of meat as the main course if you’re hosting a holiday dinner, and I admit the last time we hosted Christmas Day dinner at our house, we served a grocery store ham.
I’m not sure if I could do that in good conscience anymore, and I’m also not sure I could fork over the dough for a pastured turkey or crowd of well-raised chickens to share with family. (I bet there’s an appropriate word for more than one chicken. I bet someone will help me out with that one.)
I’m the queen of eating out of the box – metaphorically, not literally at all, since boxed food has yucky stuff in it – and hosting a holiday dinner is no different. I don’t really follow the rules.
When we last hosted Christmas Eve dinner, we went for an easy, can-prepare-ahead-of-time main course. We served chili (Recipe available in The Everything Beans Book) and cornbread. The pot sat in the garage while we were at Mass and went right on the burner when we arrived home. It couldn’t have been simpler, or more delicious.
I recently tweaked an old recipe that I threw together over a year ago with ingredients I needed to use up, and it’s gotten its share of “oohs” and “aahs” this week. I would definitely consider it as a main course for a holiday gathering, for a couple of reasons:
- It’s amazingly, restaurant quality delicious
- It stretches the meat, thereby stretching the budget when serving a crowd
- It’s easy to double
- It could sit on the stovetop for an extended period of time, either waiting for people to arrive or allowing a long, leisurely dinner, with second helpings
- It can even be made in the slow cooker so no one has to be bustling around at the last minute
- It includes mushrooms that are good for you
Tuscan Beef and Bean Stew
Tuscan Beef and Bean Stew
- Yield: 8 1x
- Category: Main Course
Ingredients
- 2 Tbs. each olive oil (use the code STEWARDSHIP for 10% off at that site!) and butter
- 4–8 oz. mushrooms, sliced
- 1 large onion, diced
- 3–4 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1–2 lbs. beef for stew or venison roast, cut in 1-2” pieces
- 2–3 c. beef or bean broth
- 2 Tbs. tomato paste (in glass jars, no BPA!)
- 15-oz. can diced tomatoes (in glass jars, no BPA!) with juice
- 2 cans white beans (or 3–4 cups cooked dry beans)
- 3–5 carrots, sliced
- optional veggies: 2–3 cups spinach or kale, 4-8 oz. fresh or frozen green beans
- 1/2 tsp. salt (Use the code kitchenstewardship for 15% off of your first purchase)
- 1/2 tsp. pepper
- 1–2 tsp. Italian seasoning
- 1–2 Tbs. fresh parsley
- 3 sprigs fresh thyme or 1/2 tsp. dried
- shredded Parmesan, to serve on top
Instructions
- In a large pot, sauté mushrooms and onions in olive oil and butter until onions are translucent and mushrooms are nicely browned.
- During the last minute, add crushed garlic to the mix.
- Add meat pieces and toss until browned as well, then put all the other ingredients except the fresh herbs in the pot.
- Bring to a boil and simmer on very low, covered, for about 2 hours or until the meat is tender and practically falling apart.
- Five minutes before serving, add the fresh herbs.
- Top with shredded or shaved Parmesan to serve.
- Makes 4-8 servings.
Notes
Options:
1. Substitute 1/2 cup of the broth for red wine; add it first after sautéing the onions and browning the meat to deglaze, then add the broth and other ingredients.
2. Add 8 oz. of cream cheese or yogurt cheese after removing from heat and before serving.
3. Slow Cooker/Crockpot option: Brown the beef and onion in a pot, then throw everything in a slow cooker on low for 8 hours. Make another similar dish in the slow cooker by following this recipe.
Where to Find High Quality Meat
Having trouble finding good quality meat locally? Would you like to fill your freezer with local and pastured options?
If you’re in Canada, check out TruLocal.ca.
If you’re in the US Midwest, Chicago to Milwaukee to Detroit to New York, and select cities across the country, check out TruLocalUsa.
If you’re west of the Mississippi, check out Wild Pastures.
If you live in any of the 48 contiguous states, I recommend US Wellness Meats and Butcher Box!
I’m grateful that there’s an online source of incredibly high quality meat that I can always count on. A subscription from Butcher Box includes grass fed, organic, pastured, and free range = all the labels important to your family’s health! And I’ve got a special deal for you!
They almost always have great deals for new customers. Claim your free gifts, and see what bonus they have going on right now. Don’t miss out!
(free shipping too!)
I’m very pleased to be part of the Whole Foods for the Holidays Progressive Dinner, hosted by Stephanie at Keeper of the Home today. Find other fancy and practical main dishes there! See all the participants and past courses here. You can still add your recipes to the linkys at the other posts, and we’ll be highlighting our favorites at the end of the round up!
A Few Quick Announcements
- If you’re prepping a dish to pass for a party, you’ll love my two simple appetizer dips. Get the videos and PDF recipes by signing up for either the sourdough eCourse or Fundamentals, and learn traditional cooking styles in the comfort of your own home. I’m a teacher in the sourdough course, but I am always blown away by the recipes the other two teachers have to share.
This week includes corn fritters and cornbread, and last week was sourdough pasta! I’ve made the chocolate cake twice in the past week, and even my husband, the sourdough skeptic, agrees that not only is it really good, but it actually gets better with age. Best. Cake. I’ve. Ever. Made. And I was afraid to try it because I didn’t want a sour cake! I’ve got to learn to stop being afraid of these recipes; Wardeh and Erin wouldn’t steer us wrong! Sign up for the adventure here. - How is your greening up going? Be sure to reference the natural body products master list, the Top 10 Green Gift Guide (both updated yesterday!) and the green cleaners master list.
- My son said last night: “My throat is sore, I need to gargle with salt water.” Has he been reading KS? If you’ve got a cold or that tell-tale tickle, you’ll want to read my 4 simple solutions for sick kids (kind of 5), all of which use stuff that’s already in your kitchen.
Hi Katie,
I made this yesterday, and it was delicious! I made it as written- I didn’t even need to add salt, it was that good. I used very good ingredients- canned San Marzano tomatoes, a good red wine, fresh green beans, and fresh basil and a couple of small tomatoes from my backyard garden. It simmered on my stove for hours until the meat was fall-apart tender. I didn’t measure carefully and ended up with a very large pot of soup. I will make this again, and again. Thank you for your simple yet beautifully elegant stew.
★★★★★
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Thanks for the delicious recipe. It was the perfect thing for our non-holiday dinner tonight.
Katie, I just had to tell you that I had bookmarked this recipe and just used it this week for Christmas Eve dinner. I needed something I could make ahead since we were going to church at 4pm. Let’s just say this was delicious and a HUGE HIT!! I was surprised how such ordinary ingredients came together in an extraordinary way. I will be saving this one for other special occasion meals. Thank you!
Looks wonderful!
Thursdays are our busy-get-home-at-6-need-a-crock-pot-meal night too! I’ll have to try this one next week!
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What does browning the beef do for the meat/stew? I’ve seen other recipes call for that, but I always just throw the cubes in the crock pot with everything else when I make my regular stew. It turns out fine, so why do more work and dirty another pan?
Frances,
I skip it sometimes (okay, often) too! It does add some flavor from the browning and can possibly seal the juices in. I’m definitely no gourmet chef! 🙂 Katie
Thanks for the input, Katie. My husband really liked the Tuscan stew, but he did comment that the meat seemed drier than usual. I will try skipping the browning next time and see what happens. 🙂
I don’t know how you knew I had beef cubes in my fridge that I needed to use, but I’m glad you did. 🙂 this recipe really, really did taste restaurant-quality. I browned everything and stuck it in the crockpot since I had to be out yesterday aftn and it made my evening so much less hectic…and tasted incredible, too. My husband had to work later, so he took his in his office and shut the door to concentrate…a few minutes later, after he finally had time for a bite, he yanked the door open just to declare how delicious it was. TFS…it’s going in the permanent file. 🙂
Deah,
That totally makes my day! 🙂 Katie
And I meant to add your recipe looks incredible, like I wish I had it right now – my family, husband in particular, doesn’t eat beans! I grew up my whole life having a pot of beans and cornbread for dinner at least once a week. I think I married an alien.
You are too sweet – you should make alien hubs pick out the beans on a recipe like this, at least once in a while. 😉 Katie
We splurge on the pastured bird for our meat on holidays – we mitigate the expense with simple sides and pot-luck dessert, which in and of itself turns into a glamorous buffet – I love being able to oooh and aaah over everyone’s specialties – and of course eat them! – and everyone goes home with a goodie tray. A lot of what we prepare goes into extended meals ie, sweet potatoes w/maple syrup and cranberry sauce go into New Years pancakes, spinach and potatoes and gravy and leftover turkey into pot pie with a cornbread dressing top crust, carcass into stock for dumplings, etc. so I factor those in to make it more…palatable, npi, because it can be eye-popping expensive.
I think one thing I’ve learned as I’ve moved passed the newlywed impress the family stage is to not stop my meal planning over the holidays, but to actually concentrate it. We eat well for two weeks off of what we include around holiday time, as long as the meals are constructed, rather than just repeated and reheated. (although I could live off of cornbread dressing alone for at least a month).
Your site is just a wealth of blessings! Thank you so much for all you share. I’m delighted (and relieved!) to have discovered you.
That looks delicious. I love soups like that – you can start with dried beans and use that broth all the way through.
And maybe a flock of chickens would be the right way to say it? Not sure – city girl here 🙂