Recipe for Guinness Irish Stew with Braised Beef (2024)

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My recipe for Guinness Irish Stew is a braised beef stew that is perfect for dinner all year and St. Patrick’s Day! It has the most flavor of any beef stew I’ve ever eaten and the meat is tender! See how to make it!

Braised Beef Stew is one of those recipes that’s burned into my childhood memories. My dad was often only home for dinner on Saturday and Sunday and he cooked dinner each Sunday. Beef stew was one of his meals and it’s one of those dinners that I looked forward to because of the little, pearl onions he would use in it.

Fast forward to now and Kevin loves a good beef stew. But I’ve never truly been in love with the overall flavor of stew. And let’s face it, stew meat can be difficult to get right because it’s not always the best cut. So, since I have a stew lover in my life, I decided to create my recipe for Guinness Irish Stew with Braised Beef that’s just packed with layers and layers of flavor.

Irish Stew History

Stew is one of those meals that has a heritage dating back to the 1800s. It was primarily a poor man’s food and became popular because you could make a lot of it with cheap cuts of meat. Very traditional Irish stews were only made with mutton (An older lamb, which. makes the meat less tender.), carrots and potatoes.

Nowadays, Irish chefs and American chefs alike take some liberties when it comes to making a “traditional” Irish stew. Most use either young lamb or beef for a more tender stew and a lot of them now use Guinness Stout for flavoring. From there, the differences only get more dramatic.

However, stews and Cottage Pie {HERE} or Sheppard’s Pie are still some of the most popular dishes for Irish people on St. Patrick’s day. In fact, corned beed and cabbage is an Irish American thing versus a true, traditional Irish dish.

My recipe for Guinness Irish Stew will take some twists on the staunch traditional one with mutton. But I promise the changes will be worth the flavor!

Seasoning the beef

The most important thing about my recipe for Guinness Irish Stew with braised beef is seasoning the meat before cooking it. Stew meat is generally made cuts of meat with a lot of connective tissue and mainly chuck or round. It’s far from filet mignon. Seasoning it is important because it sets the stage for this braised beef stew. I use sea salt, pepper, thyme, garlic salt and rosemary to season the beef. The salt will be of the upmost importance because salting it helps promote browning on the exterior and caramelization.

How you cook it

The second most important thing about making a stew – any stew – is how you cook it. Braising the beef properly will help to transform your standard stew meat into tender cut that help it maintain the flavor and the moistness. Slow simmering it will help the connective tissue break down so that the meat is tender.

I know a lot of people make their Guinness stew in a slow cooker, but my recipe for Guinness Irish Stew is made in a Dutch oven. It’s a bit more hands on for the first part of it specifically because I’ve found you get the best flavor this way.

First, the beef is browned/seared in fat from pancetta to create an exterior sear. Then it’s slow cooked and simmered in the oven with all the other ingredients to come out tender, juicy and really melt in your mouth. Braising the beef truly allows it to be the best it can be. You can get a similar effect in a slow cooker, however, I’ve found that it tends to dry the beef out a little and you lose the sear. As long as I have time, I prefer my braised beef stew recipe that’s truly slow cooked in the oven over the Crockpot.

Fresh and dry herbs

I use a combination of fresh and dry herbs in my recipe for Guinness Irish Stew. The beef is seasoned with the dry herbs and then in the pot itself I add the fresh herbs. The dry herbs are better for sticking to the beef and adding that first flavor to the pan. While the fresh herbs are better at helping to pull the dish together with a beautiful, round flavor profile. I found on thyme, rosemary, sage and fresh garlic for my fresh herb mix. (Also, a few bay leaves are added to the pot too.)

The other ingredients

Also adding flavor to the braised beef stew you have the Guinness beer. You can’t really make an Irish Beef Stew without it, can you? (I’m sure some of you do. This is rhetorical.) This goes into the pot with the beef broth and helps to deglaze the pan. It pulls together those beefy flavors that I’ve pull all the veggie flavors together.

As far as the veggies go, you have some of the usual suspects – potatoes, carrots, celery. However, in my recipe for Guinness Irish Stew I also add in a shallot and those pearl onions that my dad made his beef stew with. (Even though I realize you can’t see in them in any shots of the bowl and I can’t believe I didn’t notice it sooner.)

Also, for the potatoes, I used two kinds here. I used some red potatoes and some Baby Dutch potatoes. You can use either kind you like. I was just going with what was still good in the fridge. Technically, the waxy yellow ones are a more traditional Irish Potato.

The use of Pancetta

I mentioned above that I sear the beef in pancetta fat. This is a flavoring technic that I use in my Minestrone Soup recipe {HERE} and in other beef and chicken recipes that are escaping me at the moment but I’ll link them when I remember. It adds to the flavor of the whole pot and I believe it makes it better. What I really love when creating recipes is being able to layer flavor upon flavor for the best tasting outcome. Starting with the Pancetta allows you to get the first layer of flavor solidified before you even really begin.

Is Pancetta an Irish bacon? Nope. Irish bacon tends to come from the back of the pig and is leaner than even American bacon. Pancetta is Italian and comes from the belly of the pig. Why is it in my recipe for Guinness Irish Stew? Because it makes it taste good. Because it makes it better. It’s that simple.

Tips for making my recipe for Guinness Irish Stew with Braised Beef

• The getting the first searing and browning on the meat is crucial. Don’t skip this step and lump it all in together. When people make a recipe for Guinness Irish Stew in a crockpot this is often what they’re missing.
• Giving this recipe the time it needs to cook is also important. Note that this will take about an hour and a half from start to finish. Make sure you have the time and don’t try to rush it. The slow cooking in the oven is also crucial to getting delicious braised beef stew flavor.
• Use the highest quality extra virgin olive oil you can find. Not a huge part of this recipe but always important!
• Can you use bacon instead of pancetta? Yes, but only if you have to. And then use 1/4 cup of cut bacon.
• This Irish braised beef stew is one of those recipes that gets even better the next day! More than likely you will have leftover since I make this in a large Dutch oven. You can store it in the refrigerator in an airtight container for up to four days.
• You can also freeze this after cooking and keep it for two months. De-thaw it overnight in the refrigerator.
• Make sure to note the difference when you use fresh herbs and when you use dried. Both play important roles here.
• Don’t skip out on flavoring that stew meat! Full ingredients for the seasoning mix to use on it are below.
• If you need a good Dutch oven, this is mine {HERE}. I use it all the time in my recipes.

Looking for more Irish recipes to try?

Here’s a few more of my favorite Irish recipes on the site to go with the braised beef stew!

• Irish Soda Bread {HERE} – This is a reader favorite!
• Cottage Pie {HERE} – Do you know the true difference between cottage pie and Sheppard’s pie?
• Bailey Chocolate Cake {HERE}
• Reuben Slider Sandwiches {HERE}
• Potato Leek Soup {HERE}
• Traditional Irish Scones with Clotted Cream {HERE} – These are pictured with the stew here and go very well with it!