Easy Slow Cooker Beef Stew Recipe

For many years we have tried to cook beef stew in our slow cooker and never really perfected the recipe. Recently when I was at my Slimming World group, I heard about using a tin of stewed steak in gravy when cooking a stew. It never really occurred to me to use a tin of meat so when we went shopping at the weekend we looked out for a tin of stewed steak to add to our beef stew. It was such a game changer for us. 

This recipe has been tried and tested many times over the last few years and it’s been absolutely delicious. We’ve really enjoyed it and will most definitely be enjoying this during the colder months.

Ingredients for slow cooker beef stew

You can use as many vegetables as you like but for guidance this is what we used

• 3 Potatoes
• 1 Swede
• 2 Carrots
• 1 Onion
• 1 Parsnips
• Handful of Raw Pearl Barley
• Can of Stewed Steak in Gravy (always check the syns as they vary)
• 400ml beef stock (2 OXO cubes or 1 stock pot plus hot water)

Method

• Chop up all the vegetables into bite size pieces
• Add chopped vegetables to slow cooker
• Pour in 400ml hot beef stock (I use 2 beef OXO cubes or 1 Stock Pot)
• Add handful of raw pearl barley
• Open tin of stewed steak and place on top of vegetables
• Put lid on
• Cook on a medium heat for 7 hours plus (4 hours on high heat)
• For last hour of cooking, turn the slow cooker up to high to thicken the gravy

Check the syns

This slow cooker beef stew is delicious but be careful to check the syns in the tin of stewed steak as they can vary. For example, a can of stewed steak from Sainsburys has a syn value of 1 per tin, Morrisons Stewed Steak is 3 syns and a can of Princes stewed steak has a syn value of 6 per tin so depending on how you split up the portions, will depend on the number of syns for that meal. We usually split one slow cooker pot up into three big portions, we’re greedy and like to fill ourselves up for the night. I hope you enjoy this slow cooker beef stew as much as we do!

If you enjoyed this post you might enjoy my other Slimming World friendly recipes