Recipe of the Month May 2026 - Finley Regional Care

Slow Cooker Beef and Vegetables

The ultimate one-pot meal! Meltingly tender slow cooker beef and vegetables smothered in a gravy like sauce – because it’s so much tastier than just a watery broth! I like to make this in my slow cooker but I’ve also added directions for pressure cooker, stove and oven.

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 8 hours 20 minutes

Total Time: 8 hours 35minutes

Course: Mains, Slow Cooker

Servings: 8 – perfect for freezing some for later

Ingredients

2 kg beef chuck roast, rolled (Note 1)
1 tsp each salt and pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
1 onion (large), cut into large dice
5 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed (Note 2a)
5 carrots, peeled and cut into 2.5cm pieces
3 celery stalks, cut into 4 cm pieces
1 cup (250ml) dry red wine (sub with beef broth)
3 cups (750ml) beef broth, salt reduced
1/3 cup (50g) flour (plain / all purpose) (GF – Note 2b)
1 tsp dried rosemary
1 1/2 tsp dried thyme
750g potatoes, peeled and cut into 2.5 cm pieces

Instructions

Pat beef dry with paper towels. Sprinkle generously with salt and pepper all over.
Heat oil in a skillet over high heat. Brown aggressively all over – a deep dark brown crust is essential for flavour base! Should take about 7 minutes.
Transfer beef to slow cooker.
In the same skillet, add onion and garlic. Cook for 2 minutes until onion is browned.
Add wine, reduce by half. Transfer to slow cooker.
Mix together flour and about 1 cup of the broth. Lumps is fine. Pour into slow cooker.
Add remaining broth, carrots, celery, rosemary and thyme into slow cooker.
Cover and slow cook on LOW for 5 hours. (45 min pressure cook on HIGH, Note 3a for Oven and Stove)
Add potato, slow cook on LOW for 3 hours. (10 min pressure cooker on HIGH, Note 3b)
Remove beef. Rest for 5 minutes, then slice thickly.
Adjust salt and pepper of Sauce to taste.
Serve beef with vegetables and plenty of sauce! Bread also terrific for mopping up sauce – try these No Knead Dinner Rolls, No Yeast Irish Soda Bread or these fabulous Cheese Muffins.

Notes

1. Beef chuck is a slow cooking cut of beef. It sometimes comes rolled and tied with string (like pictured in mine). But it also comes much thicker, shaped like a normal roast cut, and this cut isn’t required to be rolled and tied like mine. Both work great.

Recipe as written suited to beef 1 – 2kg. Works for wide range of weight as you need a certain amount of liquid to partially submerge the beef. Yet the cook time remains the same because it’s driven by beef thickness, rather than weight. Feel free to reduce / increase vegetables to your beef size, and also add other vegetables.

OTHER BEEF CUTS: Works great with brisket too. Blade Roast will also work but note that the beef is very lean so while it will be tender like chuck, it’s not as juicy inside (which you can disguise by smothering with sauce).

2a. Smashed Garlic – just use the side of your knife and smash it using the palm of your hand. The garlic will burst open but remain mostly in one piece.

2b. Cornflour gluten free alternative: Mix 1 tbsp cornstarch / cornflour with a splash of broth, mix then pour in per recipe, in place of flour. Once beef is cooked and removed, check liquid thickness. If you want it thicker, mix 1 tsp cornflour with splash of water and add, heat liquid (residual heat may be sufficient) and it will thicken, repeat if you want thicker.

3a. OVEN: Lid on dutch oven or similar, 300F/150C for about 2 hrs (1 – 1.5kg) or 3 hours (2kg), then add potatoes then a further 1 hour until meat is tender.

STOVE: Add 2 more cups of water, simmer covered 2 – 2.5 hrs until meat is starting to be tender, turning meat once or twice. Add potatoes then cook another 30 minutes until meat is super tender and potatoes are soft. Keep an eye on water level.

3b. I add potatoes later otherwise I find they are so soft, they basically disintegrate. If you prefer to add potatoes in at the beginning so you don’t have to worry about adding them later, use red potatoes because they hold up better to the long cook time.

4. The carrots and celery are VERY soft by the end, softer than ideal. It’s unfortunate, but a necessary sacrifice because having them in the broth for the whole cook time adds great flavour to the sauce.

5. Servings: I allow for 200 – 250g / 6.5 – 8oz uncooked beef per serving which shrinks with the long cook time. The beef pictured was a 2 kg / 4 lb rolled chuck.

6. Nutrition per serving (480g/1lb per serving), assuming all sauce consumed.

Nutrition

All credit for this recipe https://www.instagram.com/recipetin_meals/

(Zoe Stringer, Alumuna Community Manager)