Ina Garten's Beef Stew Recipe Is What We're Making on Repeat All Season Long

Ina Garten constantly shares kitchen wisdom and tasty recipes that even the newest home cooks can lean on to build confidence. Whether she’s letting us in on the secret to tastier potato salad, hosting a dinner party, or her go-to breakfast, the Barefoot Contessa star has endless culinary knowledge and recipes. Garten’s compound butter instantly upgrades any steak, and her three-ingredient chicken recipe is ridiculously easy and worthy of a spot in the weekly meal rotation. With fall fast approaching, we’ve got our sights set on one of Garten’s warm and cozy recipes: beef stew. 

Why We Love Ina Garten’s Ultimate Beef Stew

The key to making a good beef stew is building flavor and that’s one thing Garten embraced in her Ultimate Beef Stew recipe. While we love the ease and convenience of dump dinners, sometimes taking a few extra steps will take a dish from good to outstanding.

The recipe begins with searing pancetta in olive oil. This crisps up the pork and renders the fat, which will be used in the next step to brown the short ribs. Browning the beef is important since it locks in the seasoning, improves the meat’s texture, and leaves delicious browned bits on the bottom of the pan that are essential flavor makers.

Next are the vegetables. Garten doesn’t rush any step of the process, allowing the onions and fennel plenty of time to soften and build flavor before adding in the liquid ingredients. This is what makes the stew aromatic and complex, which would be lost if you were to throw raw vegetables and liquid ingredients into the pot at the same time.

Garten adds salt throughout the process rather than in a single step. Salt is added to the ribs before browning and again with the diced tomatoes. This allows the salt enough time to infuse with the ingredients at different stages for a more well-rounded, robust taste. 

The most interesting thing about this stew recipe is that it’s baked. Baking short ribs makes them incredibly tender, but that’s not the only benefit of cooking stew in the oven. Since the heat is more evenly distributed in an oven, baking speeds up the time it takes for the flavors to meld, so you can get dinner on the table in a fraction of the time it would take to simmer. Plus, it’s more hands-off than monitoring the stovetop, and who doesn’t love that? 

Tips for Making Ina Garten’s Beef Stew 

• Prepare the ingredients: Take a moment to read through the recipe and ensure you have all of the ingredients to make the dish. While there’s nothing complicated about the recipe, it does have 16 ingredients, some of which require washing, chopping, and additional prep. Mise-en-place will help you sail smoothly through this recipe and make for a more enjoyable cooking experience. 
• How to replace the alcohol: This recipe calls for wine and cognac, but if you don’t have either on hand or don't want to use alcohol, you can easily substitute them with beef broth. You just don’t want to miss out on the sharp flavor that wine adds, so be sure to add an acidic element to replace it. The easiest way is to stir in a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, white vinegar, or lemon juice. I prefer to do it at the end of the cooking process—within the last 10 to 15 minutes—because it makes the stew noticeably brighter in flavor. 
• Degrease the stew: If you notice extra fat pooling around the edges of the stew, all you need is a ladle. Plop a few ice cubes into the ladle, then gently skim the bottom of it across the top of the stew. The cold from the ice will make the grease solidify, making it a breeze to wipe away from the ladle. You could also do this with large metal serving spoons.

What to Serve with Beef Stew

We love that beef stew is a wholesome, warming meal in one bowl. However, adding a side salad, soft dinner rolls, or a slice of crusty bread would complete your dinner table and make this hearty dish even more filling. Keep this recipe handy because once you get a taste of this beef stew, you’ll be making it on repeat all season long.