Slow Cooker Beef

This is the dinner I throw together at 7am in my pajamas before school drop-off, while simultaneously signing a permission slip I forgot about and looking for someone’s missing shoe. It takes about four minutes of actual work. I dump three things in the slow cooker, put the lid on, and leave.

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Servings: 6

Ingredients Method

Ingredients

2 lbs beef stew meat, cut into chunks (or chuck roast cut into pieces)
2 cans cream of mushroom soup (10.5 oz each — condensed, not diluted)
2 caps beef broth
3 caps egg noodles (added at the end — wide egg noodles work best)

Optional but worth it:

1 packet onion soup mix stirred in at the start
Salt, pepper, and garlic powder to taste
A handful of frozen peas added with the noodles

Method

Step 1 — Layer it in the slow cooker

Place the beef chunks in the bottom of the slow cooker. Pour both cans of cream of mushroom soup directly over the top — don’t dilute them, don’t stir them in yet, just pour. Add the beef broth around the sides. If you’re using onion soup mix, sprinkle it over everything now. Put the lid on and walk away.

Step 2 — Cook low and slow

Cook on LOW for 7 to 8 hours or HIGH for 4 to 5 hours. Low is better here — the longer the beef sits in that broth the more it breaks down and the more flavor everything develops. If you can do the full 8 hours, do it. I start mine before school drop-off and it’s ready when we get home from after-school activities.

Step 3 — Add the noodles

About 20 minutes before you want to eat, stir everything together — the soup and broth will have combined into a gravy by now and it’ll look much more impressive than three ingredients have any right to look. Add the egg noodles straight into the pot, push them down so they’re submerged in the liquid, put the lid back on and cook on HIGH for 15 to 20 minutes until the noodles are tender.

Step 4 — Taste and serve

Give it a stir, taste it, add salt and pepper if it needs it. Serve straight from the pot into bowls. Have bread ready for the gravy at the bottom of the bowl because you’re going to want it.