Cole Cooks: Instant Pot Beef Barley Stew
Beef Stew is a family favorite. For 2020 our goal is to incorporate more grains such as barley in quinoa in our meals. We started the New Year with a Beef Barley Stew. This is a recipe perfectly suited for cooking in the Instant Pot. The entire stew can come together in little over an hour.
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The Instant Pot is great because it is a multi-function device. The Instant Pot can act as a slow cooker. This would be the traditional way to cook a beef barley stew.
Nevertheless, we use our Instant Pot primarily for pressure cooking. Beef barley stew is a perfect example of a meal that would normally take hours to prepare. With a pressure cooker the entire process can be done in under 90 minutes. (see our full guide to the Instant Pot)
Beef barley stew is a flexible recipe. You can choose which vegetables and spices to add. You can also decide how big you want to cut the vegetables.
Your choice of meat can be anything that you would normally use in a stew. We use chuck roast. We subscribe to Butcher Box and they have a chuck roast that is perfect for this recipe. We take it from the freezer and let it thaw just enough that it can be cut into chunks.
My family is not big on carrots in stew. I cut them in large chunks so they can easily pick them out. I have also learned to puree onions so that kids don’t notice their presence.
This is a forgiving recipe that can also become a soup simply by adding additional beef broth or water. For the beef broth we used our homemade beef broth we made from leftover Christmas prime rib bones.
Normally we don’t have homemade beef broth on hand. In that case, we use Better than Bouillon Roasted Beef Base. Our refrigerator is always stocked with multiple varieties of Better than Bouillon.
For more information on the Instant Pot be sure and check out our guide. We are amazed at how many people are still intimidated by pressure cookers. The Instant Pot is easy to use and has really expanded our cooking repertoire.
Instant Pot Beef Barley Stew
Ingredients
- 2 tablespoons cooking oil
- 2 pounds chuck roast cut into 1-inch chunks
- 4 cups beef broth
- 1 onion diced
- 3 stalks celery chopped
- 3 carrots chopped
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 1 pound potatoes cubed
- 1 cup barley
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
- ½ teaspoon rosemary
- ½ teaspoon thyme
- 2 teaspoons salt
- 1 teaspoon ground black pepper
Instructions
- Set Instant Pot to sauté. Heat oil. Add beef and brown on all sides.
- Add onion, carrots, celery and garlic and sauté for about 3 minutes.
- Add remaining ingredients and stir to combine.
- Set Instant Pot on high pressure for 25 minutes. Let pressure naturally release for at least 15 minutes.
