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Picture shows a white bowl filled with Beef & Guinness Stew. The stew is thick with a brown gravy/broth, chunks of beef, pieces of green cabbage, orange carrots, and pearl onions. A gold spoon sits in the bowl, and two pieces of bread are on top of the stew.

Beef & Guinness Stew

This Beef and Guinness Stew with Cabbage is rich, savory, and packed with tender bites of beef, hearty vegetables, and an umami stout gravy. Guinness adds incredible depth of flavor while the slow simmer makes the beef melt-in-your-mouth delicious. It’s cozy, comforting, and surprisingly simple to make. It’s the kind of stew that tastes like it came straight from your favorite Irish-American pub.
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Prep Time:15 minutes
Cook Time:2 hours 15 minutes
Total Time:2 hours 30 minutes
Course: Dinner, Main Course, Soup
Cuisine: American, Irish
Keyword: Stew
Servings: 8

Ingredients

  • 2 pounds beef stew meat chopped into 1 ½ inch pieces
  • 2 tbsp flour
  • 2 to 4 tbsp oil
  • 2 tsp salt (plus more, if needed) if your broth is salty, use less salt
  • 2 carrots peeled and sliced
  • 4 large Yukon gold potatoes peeled and cut into large cubes
  • 8 oz pearl onions, peeled and halved about 1 ½ cups (can also use frozen pearl onions)
  • ¼ green cabbage head chopped
  • 4 cups beef broth
  • 1 cup Guinness beer or other dry stout
  • 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
  • 1 tbsp brown sugar
  • Few thyme sprigs
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 tsp pepper
  • 1 tbsp cornstarch
  • 2 tbsp water
  • Chopped parsley for garnish

Instructions

  • In a bowl or zip top bag, toss beef with 1 ½ tsp salt, 1 tsp pepper, and 2 tbsp flour.
    2 pounds beef stew meat, 2 tbsp flour, 1.5 tsp salt, plus more if needed
  • Heat 1 tbsp oil in a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Working in batches, brown the meat, cooking for a few minutes on each side (note: meat won’t be cooked through). Once browned, remove from pot and place on plate while browning next batch (may need to add 1 tbsp oil for each batch) until all the meat is browned, removed from the pot, and set aside.
    2 to 4 tbsp oil
  • In the same pot, add onions and carrots, ½ tsp of salt, and cook for 5-10 min or until starting to soften.
    2 carrots, 8 oz pearl onions, peeled and halved, 0.5 tsp salt, plus more if needed
  • Add the meat back to the pot and then deglaze with the Guinness beer and beef broth.
    4 cups beef broth, 1 cup Guinness beer
  • Add the herbs, brown sugar, Worcestershire, and potatoes and cover the pot. Cook for 1 hour. Note: cooking the potatoes this way will cause them to thicken the stew a little. If you’d rather have your potatoes less done, you can add them to the stew with the cabbage.
    1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce, 1 tbsp brown sugar, Few thyme sprigs, 2 bay leaves, 4 large Yukon gold potatoes
  • Add the cabbage to the pot and cook another hour, then remove the lid and taste for seasoning.
    ¼ green cabbage head
  • Whisk together the cornstarch and the water to make a cornstarch slurry. Add the slurry to the stew and bring it back to a boil so that it thickens up the stew.
    1 tbsp cornstarch, 2 tbsp water
  • Garnish the stew with fresh parsley and serve with crusty bread, if desired.
    Chopped parsley