This Guinness Beef Stew recipe is full of tender beef, hearty veggies, and a rich tomato stout broth. Stovetop, Instant Pot and Crock-Pot options included!
Happy St. Patrick’s Day! ♡
If you’re looking for a cozy Irish-inspired stew to celebrate today, this Guinness Beef Stew is always a winner. The classic trio of beef, potatoes and veggies is simmered low and slow with a richly-seasoned Guinness broth until every bite is melt-in-your-mouth tender (and your home smells amazing). And when served up with some good crusty bread or ladled over a bowl of noodles, this Guinness beef stew is the coziest comfort food through and through.
I thought I’d bump this recipe back to the top of the site today since I recently added in some updates (per your requests) with instructions for how to make this beef stew either on the stovetop or in the Instant Pot or Crock-Pot. And I’ve also added in a few fun new options for how to customize the stew to your liking.
So if you’re looking for a cozy beef stew recipe to make tonight — or any night of year year — grab a Guinness and let’s make some beef stew!
Guinness Beef Stew Ingredients
Before we get to the full recipe below, here are a few notes about the ingredients you will need to make this Guinness beef stew recipe:
- Beef: I typically use chuck roast when making beef stew, which is moderately-priced and becomes extra tender when slow cooked. Round roast, short ribs, sirloin or brisket would also be good options.
- Veggies: I kept things simple with a classic stew mix of onion, carrots, and potatoes. But feel free to also toss in any other stew-friendly veggies here that you love best.
- Seasonings: A simple mix of garlic, tomato paste, bay leaf, dried thyme and Worcestershire will serve as the classic seasonings for this stew. Feel free to also sprinkle some chopped fresh parsley on top for a hint of color and freshness.
- Beef stock: I recommend using a good-quality beef stock, since this will serve as the base for our broth.
- Guinness: Of course, you will also need a 12-ounce bottle of Guinness or your favorite stout to round out the broth.
- Flour: I typically use all-purpose flour to thicken the sauce. But you can alternately make a cornstarch slurry (with equal parts cold water and cornstarch whisked together) and add it to the simmering broth until it reaches your desired thickness.
Potential Recipe Variations
Here are a few additional ways that you can customize this Irish stew recipe if you’d like:
- Add bacon: I also highly recommend dicing and frying a few slices of bacon (then using the leftover grease to sauté the veggies) if you’d like to add some extra flavor to this stew.
- Add extra veggies: Feel free to add any other stew-friendly veggies that you love to this recipe as well, such as mushrooms, celery, cabbage, parsnips or peas.
- Add horseradish: I also enjoy stirring some horseradish into this stew just before serving to give it a bit of a kick. Or alternately, you can add it in at the beginning of the recipe and it will sweeten and mellow out a bit as it cooks.
- Use lamb: To make this more similar to traditional Irish stew, you’re welcome to use lamb in place of beef.
- Use a different beer: If Guinness or stout isn’t your thing, this stew can also be made with different kinds of beer (I’d recommend a pale ale) or a NA beer.
- Make it gluten-free: Skip the all-purpose flour and instead thicken the beef stew with a cornstarch slurry, made with equal parts cold water and cornstarch whisked together. Start by adding 1 tablespoon of the slurry to the simmering broth and stir for 1 minute, then add another tablespoon at a time until the broth reaches your desired thickness.
More Favorite Beef Soup Recipes
Looking for more cozy beef stew and soup recipes to try? Here are a few more of my faves…
Guinness Beef Stew
Ingredients
- 3 tablespoons olive oil, divided
- 3 pounds beef chuck roast, trimmed of excess fat and cut into bite-sized pieces
- fine sea salt and freshly-cracked black pepper
- 1 large white or yellow onion, roughly diced
- 4 cloves garlic, pressed or minced
- 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
- 1 (12 ounce) bottle Guinness beer
- 4 cups good-quality beef stock
- 3 large carrots, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 1 1/2 pounds Yukon gold potatoes, cut into bite-sized pieces
- 3 tablespoons tomato paste
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon dried thyme
- chopped fresh parsley, for garnish
Instructions
- Sear the beef. Generously season the beef with salt and pepper. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large stockpot over high heat. Add half of the beef to pan and sear, flipping the beef once it has developed a good brown sear on the bottom then repeating on multiple sides. Transfer the beef to a clean plate. Add an additional 1 tablespoon oil to the pot, add the remaining beef, sear, and transfer to a clean plate.
- Sauté the onion and garlic. Reduce heat to medium-high and add the remaining tablespoon of oil to the stockpot. Add onion and sauté for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add garlic and sauté for 1 minute, stirring occasionally. Stir in the flour and cook for 1 minute, stirring frequently.
- Simmer. Pour in the Guinness and use a wooden spoon to scrape the bottom of the pan to lift up those yummy brown bits. Stir in the beef stock, carrots, potatoes, tomato paste, bay leaf, Worcestershire, dried thyme, and the cooked beef (along with any of its accumulated juices). Cover the pot and simmer on low for 1 1/2 hours, stirring occasionally, until the beef is completely tender and the potatoes are soft.
- Season. Discard the bay leaf. Taste season the stew with additional salt and pepper as needed, plus extra Worcestershire or dried thyme if desired.
- Serve. Serve warm, garnished with a sprinkle of fresh parsley if desired, and enjoy!
Notes
Did you make this?Let me know how it turned out in the comments below!
I made the Guinness Beef Stew yesterday and it was phenomenal!! I did add fresh mushrooms to the recipe and it gave the flavor/texture a a spunky kick. Thank you so much for the recipe!
Yay, so happy to hear it!
This looks lovely! We’re not big on leftovers, and it’s just my husband and I at home, would this recipe still work the same if I halved it, or even broke it down to a third of the ingredients? (I think I have about a pound of chuck roast in my freezer right now) I would assume reducing the ingredients that much would reduce the cook time? Other than that do you think it would still turn out alright in a smaller portion?
Thanks, Alexandria, we hope you guys enjoy it! And yes, you could definitely cut this in half or do a third of the recipe. It shouldn’t really reduce the cook time though.
This so delicious and perfect for this rainy Kansas day! Excited to make it, maybe even with a side of beer or soda bread :)
Ps. Very jealous of your Ireland trip, that is my dream vacation!
If wanting to cook this in a crockpot, at what point do you actually point all ingredients into the crock pot? I’m assuming you need to do all of Step 1 and Step 2 in a pot on the stove to really cook the beef, correct? Once you have added everything and are ready to simmer, for 1.5 hours, is that when you would transfer to the crockpot?
If the recipe says 1.5 hours on the stove, approx. how long in the crockpot should it simmer for?
Hi Carly! We haven’t tried this particular recipe in a crockpot, but yes, you would still want to do all of step 1 in a pot on the stove (the beef doesn’t need to be cooked all the way, it just needs to get browned, as that’s what’ll add awesome flavor in the crockpot). Then we think you would be fine to add everything to the crockpot. We would suggest cooking on low for 6-8 hours, or on high for 3-4 hours, or until the beef is tender and falls apart easily when shredded with a fork. We hope this helps and that you enjoy the stew!
Cooked this tonight for St Patty’s day! Thought it would be the perfect meal to welcome my family in town before we head off for a trip to Ireland! How’s that for festive? :) Thanks!
That’s awesome, and totally appropriate! :) We hope you and your family enjoyed it and that you have a blast in Ireland, how exciting!
Has an excellent pint!
It would really be nice if there were a way to print out the recipe! If I use the Firefox print button, the type is so small as to be unreadable, especially while cooking. And no other way to print it from your webpage that I can find!
Hi Ron, there is a way to print the recipe! :) There is “print” icon just below the round, cropped recipe photo at the top righthand corner of the recipe.
The recipe says “1 (12 ounce) bottle Guinness beer, divided”, but I don’t see where what to do with the second portion?
Hi Jennifer! We’re so sorry, that was a typo. We’ve since edited it and it’s the whole bottle of Guinness. We’re sorry for the mistake and we hope you enjoy this!
I made this today in crockpot on high 4 hours. It’s tasting good but I thought sauce should be thicker. It’s more a soup consistency. Is there anyway to thicken it without losing flavor?
Hi Linda! Hmmm, it should be pretty thick, we’re not sure what could have gone wrong. You can definitely make it thicker though. We’d suggest making a slurry and adding it to the stew (try 4 TBS of flour and whisk 1 cup of the liquid from the stew into it, then add it back to the stew). That should make a big difference — we hope that helps!
Two ways one can thicken the sauce.
A. Take out all except the sauce and simmer at high heat untill your desired consistency.
B. Add either butter or flour to thicken sauce to your desired consistency.
Crock pots almost always water down a soup/stew because it never reduces. A slurry should definitely help.
Guinness makes everything good! :D I will definitely give this a try. We made corned beef and cabbage recently and I have a shepherd’s pie to cook too…I love all of this seasonal food! It sounds like an amazing wedding you went to, too…as a wedding photographer, there is nothing better than an enthusiastic crowd who loves to dance!
We totally agree! :) We hope you enjoy this, Jess!