Beef bourguignon is just a great comfort food. You might think because of the name that the dish is too fancy and complex to make at home. Tasting the rich and intense flavor of this dish might reinforce that thought. All that being said, the ingredients are fairly basic. The beef is braised in red wine and includes some herbs, carrots, mushrooms, garlic, and onions. This dish is just the French version of a beef stew. This recipe may turn out to be your favorite version for a beef stew and I am sure it will soon become one of your favorite comfort food dishes to make! Our version also includes some bacon lardons (another word for bacon cut into small pieces – fancy…right?) As the saying goes, “Everything is better with bacon!”

There is one main requirement you need to follow when making this dish. That is you need to allow enough time for the ingredients to all come together to develop the intense flavors you expect and for the meat to become tender. To ensure that we succeed and to help the process, we are going to use the sous vide.

Let’s Sous Vide!

Do you have to use sous vide for my recipe? You do not! This dish has been around way before technology came into the picture. If you haven’t yet jumped into this type of cooking, you can do the following; start off by marinating your meat. Salt and pepper the beef and place it in a non-reactive bowl; add some wine and some herbs and let sit for a couple of hours. Strain and save the marinating liquid before searing your meat. You will want to use the liquid as part of your sauce. Then follow the recipe directions. You are definitely going to need to add some additional time to cook. After a couple of hours of cooking time, check your meat so as to not overcook.

So why use sous vide? Typically when cooking many types of beef or pork stew, we would be using a cheaper cut of meat as in our case a chuck roast. These types of roasts can be more flavorful because of all the internal marbling and collagen. However, they are also a tougher cut of meat because of all their connective tissue which requires a longer cooking time at a lower heat for the meat to break down and make tender. Using the sous vide process will allow me to cook my meat at a consistent temperature over a long period of time obtaining a melt in your mouth texture with no chance of overcooking.

Since using the sous vide will require me to cook my meat for a long time, why not simplify things and cook the meat while I am sleeping. Sounds good! We will just cut our chuck roast into bite-size pieces; add some salt and pepper, some herbs, and a 1/4 cup of wine; vacuum seal everything, and cook overnight to achieve some perfectly tender beef for our beef bourguignon!

Check here for further discussion of using the Sous Vide Process and for additional recipes!

Tell Me More About the Dish

After we sous vide the meat, we will add it to a hot cast iron pan to get a good sear. You need to make sure you dry the meat first before you add it to the pan. We don’t want to steam the meat so don’t crowd the pan. Cook in as many batches as you need.

What About the Sauce?

Any great “stew” needs a great sauce. The backbone for our dish is a whole bottle of red wine. Cooking wine over a long period of time with the rest of the ingredients helps develop that rich flavor of our sauce. A French Burgundy wine is suggested for this dish which would be Pinot Noir. Can you use a different full-bodied red wine? Sure…the end result may be a little different. Nevertheless, your dish will be great. I also like to use a little bit of B & B (Brandy and Benedictine Liquor) to deglaze the pan after we sear the meat. Just another ingredient to layer additional flavors to our dish.

Additional Thoughts

What if my sauce is too thick or too wet? Most of the thickening of our sauce will occur by slowly reducing the liquid over low heat. To help that along we will add some corn starch to “dust” the beef before it gets seared. We will also add a couple of packets of unflavored gelatin. I got this hint from a recipe I read from J. Kenji López-Alt on Serious Eats. I am always picking up some great hints from his blog. If your sauce is too thick just add a little broth or water to get the consistency you prefer.

If you want a nice presentation, get some bread bowls to layer in the stew. Two great sides would be mashed potatoes or polenta. You can’t go wrong no matter how you serve this dish. Check here for my recipe for polenta.

Let me know how you and your family enjoy this recipe by commenting below. And as always, thanks for Spending Time in My Kitchen!

Best Beef Bourguignon Recipe!

0 from 0 votes

Recipe by David Frank – Spending Time In My Kitchen

Servings

servings

Prep time

minutes

Cooking time

hours

Sous Vide time (if used)

18 – 24

hours

Cooking time – not using sous vide

hours

Ingredients

Ingredients for the Sous Vide
3 lbs 3 Chuck roast, cut into 2-3 inch cubes
1 1 – 750ml Bottle of Pinot Noir (set aside 1/2 cup for sous vide)
3 Sprigs 3 Thyme, (set aside 1 or 2 sprigs for sous vide)
2 tsp 2 each, Salt and pepper
Additional Ingredients
6 oz 6 Bacon, cut into lardons (I used Slab Bacon for my lardons)
1 tbl 1 Tomato paste
2 tsp 2 Garlic, minced
1/2 Cup 1/2 Brandy and Benedictine Liquor (optional)
1 Lg 1 Yellow onion, sliced in 1/2 – then slice each 1/2 into thin slices
2 2 Carrot, sliced small chunks (oblique cut)
2 Lg 2 Bay leaves
2 tsp 2 Herbs de Provence
24 oz 24 Beef broth, (chicken broth will work well if beef is not available)
3 3 – .25 oz packets of unflavored powdered gelatin.
Salt and pepper to taste
2 Tbl of grapeseed oil or clarified butter (ghee)
16 16 Pearl onions, peeled
16 oz 16 Cremini mushrooms, quartered
Garnish
Italian parsley for garnish

Directions

Sous Vide (if you do not want to sous vide review my discussion above)
Cut meat into 2 -3 inch cubes. Season the meat with salt and pepper. Add 2 stems of thyme into the bag. Place meat into a vacuum bag. Add 1/2 cup of wine into the bag. Vacuum seal the bag. (You may need more than one bag depending on your bag size and your method of sealing the bag.)
Sous vide the beef at 150° for 18 – 24 hours. (Your meat will be nice and tender within this range-use the time that works best for you!)
After sous vide cooking is completed, strain the liquid from your packages and set it aside for later. Remove the meat from the vacuum bag; pat the meat dry with a paper towel and set the meat aside. (If you do not pat the meat dry, you will lessen your ability to get a nice crust on the meat.)
Let’s Sear the Meat
Add your bacon lardons to your cast iron pan and cook until nicely brown. Remove your lardons and set them aside.
Toss the beef in a bowl with the corn starch. Add the beef to the cast iron pan you cooked the bacon in.
Sear your beef in the cast iron pan. When the beef has a little crust to it, remove your meat and place it in a Dutch Oven which we are using to slow-cook our beef bourguignon.
Add your tomato paste into your cast iron pan; stir and cook for a couple of minutes. Add your garlic and stir. Add your Brandy and Benedictine Liquor into the pan; stir and scrape the bottom of the pan with a wooden spoon to help deglaze the pan allowing all of the caramelized bits stuck to the bottom to release. (if you do not have the above liquor, use broth or water to deglaze the pan, or a different brandy/cognac)
Add your onions and carrots to your cast iron pan until they are lightly browned.
Place the carrots and onions into your Dutch Oven.
Pour your packets of gelatin into a small bowl of your broth and whisk until completely combined.
Add the liquid contents from the sous vide bag used earlier to the Dutch Oven. Add the remainder of the bottle of wine, the gelatin-broth, and the rest of the broth to the Dutch Oven.
Add bay leaves, Herbes de Provence, and thyme to your Dutch Oven.
Stir the contents. Cover your Dutch Oven and place it into a 325° oven. Cook for 1 hour.
While your dish is cooking in the oven we need to brown the pearl onions and the mushrooms. We only want to add the mushrooms and the pearl onions to the pot 15 minutes before the dish is ready to keep them from getting too soft and mushy.
Take your mushrooms that have been cut into quarters and place them into your cast iron pan. Sprinkle with salt and place the pan on your stove over medium-high heat. Add 1 tablespoon of grapeseed oil or a tablespoon of clarified butter to the mushrooms. Stir and cook them for 5 minutes until brown. Set them aside.
Take your pearl onions and place them in the cast iron pan. Sprinkle with salt and place the pan on your stove over medium-high heat. Add 1 tablespoon of grapeseed oil to the pearl onions. Stir and cook them for 5 minutes until brown. Set them aside.
After your stew has been in the oven for an hour, check the tenderness of your meat. Add additional salt and pepper to taste if needed
Add your mushrooms and pearl onions to the Dutch Oven. Cook for an additional 15 minutes.
Time to plate! Ladle onto your plate your mash potatoes or polenta if used. Ladle some of your Beef Bourguignon onto your plate. (or bread bowl). Sprinkle with some chopped parsley and serve!
Enjoy!