Easy Italian Beef Stew

Need an easy slow cooker beef stew? This Italian beef stew is quick to assemble, tastes delicious, and is still good for you! Keep this recipe on hand for those times when you know your day will be busy; your family will be as happy as you are! Gluten free, GAPS friendly, and allergy friendly.

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Do you have days where you know in advance that the dinner hour is going to be crazy? When dinner will be very late or simply won’t happen?

Activities that run into the dinner hour, helping with homework, work, an illness– there are many ways dinner time can be pressured. When I had young children, two of whom were infants, that was every night for awhile!

Sometimes these evenings hit unexpectedly. Often, we know they are coming. For those predictable times, your slow cooker is your friend! (If you have trouble with every slow cooker meal tasting similarly unappetizing, keep reading– I have solutions!)

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This is a recipe for those days when you aren’t up for much prep work. You have some staples in stock, and you have a few minutes to dump them into a slow cooker.

I made up a very easy Italian beef stew lying on the kitchen floor with flu and a fever. My son who cooks left for a morning class with his sister, and my at-the-time-recent high school graduate was getting ready to leave for work. He asked if I needed help before he left.

Yes, I did. But what could he manage with his limited time and cooking skills?

How to Make a Very Easy Italian Beef Stew

Here are the instructions that emerged from my fever-addled mind:

I had some beef chunks and sliced mushrooms in the refrigerator from my shopping trip the day before. They were clearance-priced and needed to be used that day without fail! I wasn’t going to manage whatever I had planned for them, so I told him to dump them in the slow cooker.

Then a mirepoix. We had the carrot, onion and celery version, but this stew is great with the bell pepper, onion, and celery one as well.

Then a bunch of garlic. Within his skill set and fast!

Finally, pour in a whole jar of marinara. Maybe stir it, but I was past caring as the ceiling revolved over my head.

I may have weakly suggested making sure it was plugged in and turned on as I dragged back to bed and he left for work.

Later, someone, probably my younger son, asked if anything needed to be done before serving it. He may have adjusted the seasoning. Usually, it doesn’t need much.

The next day I was shocked to find they had polished off the whole pot. This is a recurrent problem– people eat a lot of this stew, no matter how much I make.

You can pull this stew together from pantry and freezer staples. Sometimes I chop the veggies fresh. Other times, frozen beef and veggies plus a jar of sauce make a perfectly good stew, even without mushrooms.

Another happy aspect of this recipe is that it provides a nourishing, clean meal. Nothing processed except for the pasta sauce. I recommend stocking one with no sugar or other weird ingredients. Aldi carries an organic, no sugar, affordable version that tastes good and comes in glass. Zero weird ingredients!

A word about sugar in pasta sauces

Gourmet cooks insist you must add sugar to your tomato based sauces. They have a point. Here is why.

On the other hand, feel free to skip it; the sauce is delicious without any sugar. You may be surprised at how much sugar is in popular pasta sauces!

At the time we made up this recipe, we were on the GAPS diet. Absolutely no sugar allowed! You could add a tiny bit of honey, or maybe some carrots puréed in for sweetness to balance the acidic tomatoes, if you wanted.

GAPS people really need some easy dinners for these tougher days. The downside of this stew is that there is no meat stock in it, so we drink of mug of stock alongside our stew. That night that I was sick and the rest of the family had the stew, I’m pretty sure they missed their meat stock. Life happens, and we don’t always achieve perfection. At least they got a filling meal with no GAPS cheats!

But every slow cooker meal I make tastes the same!

It is a real struggle. I had the same problem and pretty much quit using my slow cooker except for chili and roasts when I was first married. It wasn’t that the meals were inedible, it was that they had a disgustingly bland taste, almost like being stale.

I returned to avid slow cooker use when my twins were babies. I could put a slow cooker meal together during their morning nap or even at lunchtime, and it tasted perfectly good. If you can start your recipe a little later, that might fix the problem.

What if you can’t start the cooker later? Well, I stumbled on some solutions to the “yucky-slow-cooker-taste” problem. By that time, I was leaving for work at 6:40, then picking the kids up from school and doing after school things. We didn’t eat until 6:00. Plenty of time for yucky-slow-cooker-taste to set in.

Here are some solutions that helped me eradicate yucky-slow-cooker-taste:

• I bought a programmable slow cooker. You have to start it right away for food safety, but you can set it for a shorter time and it will switch to “keep warm” after that. That helps, but not every time.
• Season the food more at the end. Either reserve half the seasonings and add them just before serving, or follow the recipe and then add extra of the same ones just prior to serving.
• Alternatively, add something at the end that wasn’t there at the beginning that you think would taste good. For example, if your chili has chili powder and cumin, you could add something like oregano or smoked paprika at the end, with or without more chili power and cumin.
• The most helpful strategy I have for fixing yucky-slow-cooker-taste is to stir in something acidic. I don’t know the kitchen science that explains it; if you know, please tell me! What you add depends on the recipe– lemon or lime juice, any kind of vinegar, wine, yogurt or sour cream– pick something that sounds right with the dish and try it. If you use wine or vinegar, use a tablespoon, then taste and add more if needed. You may notice that the color of the dish brightens along with the taste!
• Some foods are not meant to be cooked in the slow cooker for long, and you will not be happy with the results no matter what you do. Chicken breast requires a short cooking time, with a few exceptions. Eggs, fish, and desserts are others to save for a day when you can cook for just a couple of hours.

Make Easy Italian Beef Stew Your Way!

A wonderful feature of stews is that they adapt seamlessly to all sorts of changes! Use what you like, what fits your diet, and what you have on hand– no need for a special trip to the store!

• Switch meats– I make this with pork now and then, and it would probably work fine with chicken thighs if you don’t overcook.
• Play around with any vegetables that stand up to long cooking! Potatoes would be great if not on GAPS. Throw in beans, stewed tomatoes, bell peppers, etc.
• Add tender veggies at the end– frozen peas or green beans are good! Maybe broccoli or spinach?
• Fiddle with the seasoning– if I need to perk this up to get rid of yucky-slow-cooker-taste, I add a tablespoon of red wine vinegar or red wine. Try extra garlic or Italian seasoning, salt if it needs more, and pepper or red pepper flakes.
• Have fun with toppings! You don’t need any, but try some cheese or sour cream, freshly chopped herbs, pesto, croutons, pickled onions…
• If you can, some sort of bread is ideal with stew– a fresh sourdough, an Italian loaf, or garlic bread.

So, now you have a simple way to prepare a hearty meal next time you need a slow cooker meal for a busy afternoon!

Though this is really an easy Italian beef stew, what if you need something more last-minute? Check our my also-easy sloppy Joe soup or stuffed pepper soup!