Slow Cooked Beef Stroganoff (Dutch oven)

If you’re new here, you might not know I also run a small online store where I keep many of the tools I cook with every day, along with a few timeless homewares for good, slow living…

Here are why you will fall in love with this easy Dutch oven 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 you need to get started

• Chuck steak is the cut of meat best (and most readily available) for beef stroganoff, in my opinion. Chuck becomes beautifully tender after a few hours in the oven and has enough fat and connective tissue to create a rich, flavorful sauce. 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 – brown onion (sliced), sliced, fresh mushrooms (button or brown). Because I’m adding porcini powder you can use both. If you can’t get your hands on porcini powder, use brown mushrooms. They have a much deeper flavor that button mushrooms and that will help offset some of the depth that the porcini brings to the pot.
  
  
  
• 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. If you can’t get porcini powder, a couple of dried porcini mushrooms (or cepes) thrown into the stew will do the same thing, or if you have a spice grinder, they can easily be ground into a powder.
  
  
  
• 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

Here’s The Steps…

1. Preheat the oven.
   
2. Coat the beef in flour.
   
3. Brown the beef on all sides.
   
4. Saute the onions til translucent.
   
5. Add all the ingredients (except sour cream) into the pot.
   
6. Pop it into the oven and cook.
   
7. Add the sour cream.
   
8. Cook until the beef is tender and falling apart.
   
9. Remove from the oven. Season with salt & pepper, and serve.

Equipment

A 24cm 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 24cm, 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 a 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 at a lower temperature, the sauce is less likely to reduce into a gravy-like consistency. You would also most likely have to adjust both the stock quantity and cooking time.

My Go-To Cast Iron Pot

If there’s one piece of kitchen equipment I couldn’t live without, it’s my 24cm Le Creuset enamel Dutch oven. Steady heat, beautiful cooking and it goes from the stovetop straight to the table.

SEE THE ONE I USE

Ok, let’s serve this up

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, colcannon 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 2 cm-wide strips. Cook for 4-5 minutes or until al dente. 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

Make some large jacket potatoes, open them up, and fill with a scoop or two of beef stroganoff. Top with sour cream, grated cheddar, and chives, and you’ve got the BEST Sunday supper ever!