11 Hearty Slow-Cooker Beef Stews for a Warm and Cozy Winter

Updated January 22, 2020
Few things beat coming home to a hearty beef stew that’s ready for you to enjoy after a long day of work. These 11 slow-cooker beef stew recipes require very little prep and just a few hours in the crock pot. Talk about a winter weeknight dream!
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Slow-Cooker Korean Beef & Cabbage Stew

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Brown sugar makes this slow-cooker beef stew a tad sweet, which beautifully complements the spicy kimchi. You can make this soup ahead and refrigerate it until ready to eat. If you opt to make it ahead, wait until you reheat the soup to add the cabbage.

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Slow-Cooker Braised Beef with Carrots & Turnips

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The spice blend in this healthy beef stew recipe—cinnamon, allspice and cloves—may conjure images of apple pie, but the combo is a great fit in savory applications too. Serve over creamy polenta or buttered whole-wheat egg noodles.

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Slow-Cooker Chuck Roast with Potatoes & Carrots

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This slow-cooker chuck roast is winter comfort food at its finest. A bright, slightly sweet sauce balances the rich and tender braised beef. You can substitute multi-colored baby potatoes (halved) for the Yukon variety and fresh fennel fronds for the parsley, if desired.

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Slow-Cooker Herb & Mushroom Braised Beef

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With its comforting flavors contributed by savory meat, mushrooms, onions, carrots and fresh herbs, this slow-cooker braised beef is a wonderful supper on cold-weather days. Consider freezing it into portions for busy weeknight meals. You could also shred the meat and serve it on sandwiches.

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Slow-Cooker Beef Stew

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Load the crock pot and go with this stew recipe that's prepped in the morning and simmers all day so you'll come home to a Sunday-worthy dinner (and your house smelling downright heavenly). Tender beef, melt-in-your-mouth potatoes and carrots in a rich broth—this could be the best and easiest beef stew you've ever made.

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Slow-Cooker “Corned Beef” & Cabbage

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This warming slow-cooker stew has all the flavors of corned beef and cabbage but with much less sodium, plus it's ready in half the time of traditional corned beef and cabbage. Rather than curing the beef in a salty brine for at least a day, we just throw the beef and veggies into a crock pot with pickling spice for that delicious briny flavor without the long soaking period.

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Slow-Cooker Brisket & Onions over Buttery Mashed Potatoes

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This brisket is seasoned with tangy mustard, sweet turbinado sugar and pungent garlic. Substitute brown sugar for the turbinado, if desired, and use the tube variety of tomato paste so any leftovers stay fresh longer. We recommend serving this braised beef over mashed potatoes, but it'd be just as delicious over rice, spaghetti squash or pasta.

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Hearty Vegetable Beef Stew

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The slow cooker makes this veggie-packed beef stew super-easy and extra-savory.

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Fragrant Shredded Beef Stew

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This stew has a simple list of ingredients, but plenty of great flavor thanks to flank steak, a cut that's known for its excellent meaty flavor. The flank is also known for its long grainy, and sometimes tough texture. In this stew the texture is a great asset—the meat shreds apart into tasty strips after it's cooked in the slow cooker.

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Flemish Beef Stew

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For this slow-cooker interpretation of Carbonnades Flamandes, a Flemish stew made with beer, if you can't find a brown ale, use a strong, dark beer (but not a stout).

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Slow-Cooked Provencal Beef Stew

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The flavors in a slow-cooked beef stew improve as it sits for a day or two, so it is a perfect make-ahead for a dinner party. Buy nicely marbled meat, such as chuck, for this recipe.

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