Classic American Beef Stew: Better than Ever Cooked in Clay!

Beef stew is one of our signature VitaClay recipes—it comes out so great that we were awarded Best Slow Cooker by Good Housekeeping when this was their test dish.

We've posted a lot of recent stew recipes, but most of them are a twist on the classic beef stew recipe, and I wanted to make sure we made that available as well.

One of the things I love about clay is the texture enhancing qualities: whatever I cook in VitaClay has a better texture than any other time I've cooked that thing (this goes for both slow cooking and grains like rice, oatmeal, quinoa, pasta, and lots of other things).

Something about the clay preserves the texture of foods like nothing else. I think that's why clay baking dishes have such a following: the texture of bread made in clay is something you can't duplicate.

The reason VitaClay can preserve texture so well in slow cooking dishes is firstly due to the properties of clay, but also because it just cooks faster than other slow cookers.

Our electronic housing seals, creating micro-pressure, which gives VitaClay the ease and convenience of a slow cooker while delivering the speed of a pressure cooker.

You can leave the house or go to sleep while it's cooking, unlike a stove-top pot. And we think the rice comes out better in VitaClay too!

So on this Soup Sunday, without further ado—here is our world-famous beef stew recipe. It's good. And so easy, we promise!

Ingredients:

• 2-3 lb stew meat, cubed
• ½ lb carrots, peeled and chopped
• 3 stalks celery, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 red onion, chopped
• ½ cup barley or wheat berries, or rice, rinsed
• 1 T butter or coconut oil
• 4 c broth
• 1 T fresh thyme, chopped
• 1 bay leaf
• 2 tomatoes, chopped (or ½ c favorite tomato sauce)--optional
• sea salt and pepper to taste
• fresh cilantro and/or parsley to garnish (optional)

Directions:

1. Add everything except garnish to the clay pot
2. Close, seal and cook on “stew” setting for 2-3 hours
3. Taste and adjust salt and pepper, then serve (garnish with cilantro/parsley if desired)
4. Keeps well in the fridge for up to a week, or can freeze for several months