Name: Big Batch: Slow-Cooked Beef Stroganoff
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: 3 h 30 min
Total time: 4 h
Cuisine: Hungarian
Ingredients: 2 tbsp olive oil (extra virgin); 1 brown onion (sliced); 1 kg chuck steak (cut up into a 3-4cm rough dice); 1 tbsp plain flour; 750 ml beef stock; 300 g button mushrooms (sliced); 2 tsp hungarian paprika; 2 tsp dijon mustard; 2 tbsp tomato paste; ½ tsp porcini powder; 2 black garlic cloves (peeled); ⅓ c sour cream; salt & pepper (for seasoning)

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A slow-cooked, Dutch oven of beef stroganoff is one of those childhood dinners like my mum’s rissoles that I still go weak at the knees for. It’s a classic recipe the whole family will love. Stew AND pasta. Talk about a comfort food classic. I’m kind of having a moment with this one. I’ve made it for dinner three times this past month and it’s already on my meal planner for next week! We’re talking melt-in-your-mouth slow-cooked beef, oodles of mushrooms, a creamy sour cream, and paprika sauce, served over a super-cozy bowl of egg noodles. Pour a glass of wine and enjoy!

My big batch recipes generally feed 6-8 servings. The idea is that one batch will feed 3-4 people 2 nights dinner making them great for time-poor people, batch cooks, or like me, cooking for shift workers.

slow cooked beef stroganoff with black pepper parpadelle in a cast iron frypan

Three reasons why you will fall in love with this easy Dutch oven beef stroganoff recipe.

It’s comforting with a capital “C”. Because who doesn’t love a complete meal of pasta drenched in a creamy sauce after a long day?

One pot is all that’s needed to cook this easy slow-cooked beef stroganoff. Personally, I just love any recipe where there’s a little prep, a couple of hours in a French or Dutch oven, and you end up with a delicious slow-cooked dinner that lasts for a few days.

It’s a total classic. An oldie but a goodie you might say. Sometimes you don’t need to reinvent the wheel when you’re looking for a good dinner and an old-fashioned, one-pot beef stroganoff recipe is basically a family-friendly winner of a meal.

What is beef stroganoff?

Think beef chunks in a tomato, sour cream, dijon mustard, and Hungarian paprika sauce. Originally created in Russia in the 1800’s, creamy beef stroganoff recipes are now readily cooked and have become a favorite of many (including me!). While many classic beef stroganoff recipes use quick-cooking cuts of meat, like sirloin, I’m a slow cook and would much rather have something in the oven for a few hours that will reheat perfectly the next day or two without the meat getting chewy and inedible.

What you need to get started

Chuck steak is the cut of meat best (and most readily available) for beef stroganoff in my opinion. Although you could also use any other slow-cook beef stew meat cuts. The cuts of beef that I most use with my beef stews are chuck steak, chuck roast, and beef cheeks, however, you could use gravy beef as well. All can turn a simple meat cut into a tender beef stew masterpiece!
Vegetables – sliced, fresh mushrooms (button or brown), brown onion (sliced)
Pantry staples – Dijon mustard, tomato paste, beef broth or beef stock, plain, all-purpose flour, olive oil.
Sea salt flakes & pepper (for seasoning)
Hungarian paprika – an essential for traditional beef stroganoff. Don’t substitute this one. Different paprikas have wildly different characteristics, and Hungarian paprika gives the stroganoff part of its unique flavor.
Porcini powder – This stuff is how you take a good beef stroganoff sauce into a freakin GREAT beef stroganoff sauce! Add a little porcini powder to stews and soups when you’re looking for a good, rich, mushroomy flavor. While it’s not traditionally Hungarian, I just love the depth of flavor it brings to this traditional version of stroganoff.
Black garlic – I love this stuff. Get on board, I use it whenever I can. Like the porcini powder, it’s a flavor bomb!
Sour cream

All the ingredients you need to make Dutch oven beef stroganoff.

The details

Preheat the oven to 150°c.
Place the diced beef in a bowl and coat in the flour mixture.
In a cast-iron casserole, add a little oil and a few beef pieces. Brown beef on all sides. Cook the beef in batches to avoid overcrowding in the pot and the meat stewing. After each batch is cooked, remove the meat from the pan, place on a plate, and set aside. See those little cooked browned bits stuck to the bottom of the pot? Those crispy bits add so much flavor to a simple beef stroganoff, so don’t worry if anything sticks or if there are any little burnt bits in the pan.
Add a little more olive oil (if needed) and the onions to the Dutch oven. Saute on low to medium heat until onions are translucent.
Add the browned beef and all the remaining ingredients (except sour cream) into the pot. Stir the beef broth to combine all the ingredients and bring to a simmer on top of the stove.
Pop the casserole into the oven and cook for 3 hours.
Remove from oven. The easiest way to incorporate the sour cream is to pop the sour cream into a bowl and a ladle full of the stroganoff sauce. Stir to fully incorporate the sour cream into the sauce and then add to the casserole and give a good stir to fully mix the sour cream mixture into the stroganoff.
Pop back into the oven and cook for a further 30 minutes or until the beef is tender and falling apart.
Remove from the oven. Season with salt & pepper, and serve.

Diced chuck steak tossed in flour in a bowl.

Equipment

A 28cm French oven is my go-to when making this recipe for slow-cooked stroganoff in the oven. It’s my favorite slow-cooking vessel. A large Dutch oven or French oven like a 28cm can easily cook a meal big enough to feed 6-8 adults, which for our little family of three, means either we have enough to freeze a night’s dinner for another time or there’s dinner already cooked for a second night. Woohoo!

You could also use a traditional slow cooker, instant pot, or pressure cooker. As a general rule, you will get a much more gravy-like consistency with a French (or Dutch) oven as the sauce reduces while simmering away in the oven. As a slow cooker cooks on a lower temperature, the sauce is less likely to reduce into a gravy-like consistancy. You would also most likely have to adjust both the stock quantity and cooking time.

Ok, let’s serve up this homemade stroganoff

How about a side of creamy mashed potatoes? Or take it up a notch (and add an Irish twist) with a side of colcannon?

Steamed rice, or even cauliflower rice works really well too. If I have enough for a couple of days, we might have it with egg noodles on night one, mash on night two, and rice on night three!

I always love a side of steamed vegetables, because as a mum I always try to sneak veggies in wherever I can!

My favorite way to serve this easy stroganoff recipe is with homemade black pepper pappardelle. To make these black pepper, and wide egg noodles, follow this recipe to make pasta dough. After feeding the dough through the pasta machine a few times, lay the pasta sheet on a table and generously grind black pepper all over. Fold the dough in half and continue to feed through the pasta roller, adjusting the pasta width working from a 0 up to as thin as you would like. For pappardelle, I usually get up to about a 6 or 7. When your pasta is at your desired width, slice it into 2cm wide strips. Cook for 4-5 minutes or until aldente. Strain and fold cooked pasta through beef stroganoff. Finish with chives and a little extra sour cream on top and you have SO MUCH FLAVOR

Can I freeze slow-cooked beef stroganoff?

Can it be frozen? Yes!!! Save this family favorite for another day in an airtight container! When freezing beef stroganoff, I leave out the sour cream until reheating. Then in a medium bowl, add a little stew sauce to the sour cream. Mix well. Then incorporate it into the beef stroganoff.

Love slow cooking? Here are a few more of my easy dinner recipes…