Instant Pot Beef and Barley Soup Recipe using beef stew meat (2024)

FAQs

How do you use the meat stew function on Instant Pot? ›

Add meat, seasonings and liquids to the pot. Secure and lock the lid. Select the Meat/Stew button. The default Instant Pot meat setting is pre-programmed to set the pot to cook at High pressure for 35 minutes, which is suitable for most dishes like beef stew or pulled pork.

Additionally stew meat tends to have more tough gristle, which will never get tender. Using a large piece of boneless chuck allows you to easily trim off all the unwanted parts first, then cut the beef into uniform 1 1/2-inch pieces that will cook more evenly in the pressure cooker.

For example, cook a 2-pound pot roast at high pressure for 40 minutes and a 3-pound pot roast for 60 minutes. Frozen beef: I highly recommend thawing your beef for this recipe, since you cannot sear the frozen beef. If you must use frozen beef, assume 30 minutes per pound.

Both slow cookers and pressure cookers do a good job of tenderizing tough meat, but each makes meat more edible in a different way.

Dust the beef with flour and shake off the excess. Add some oil to the pot and sear the meat until it is well browned. Add 1.5 cups of beef broth and 1 LBS of stew meat into an InstantPot and pressure cook for 20 minutes (with quick release). Meat will be superbly tender, juicy, and delicious.

Cooking meat does not make it tough, it gets more tender. Meat does get dry at higher temperatures, time does not matter that much. The higher the temperature the more moisture is squeezed out of the meat making it more dry, I guess that it what you describe as tough.

Unfortunately, once you overcook a piece of meat in the pressure cooker, there's no going back. You'll be left with a pile of dry, crunchy, tasteless fibers and no amount of additional pressure cooking is going to put that moisture back into the meat.

There's lots of water in the meat too, so even 1 cup added water will result in a fair amount of liquid after cooking. No you do not have to cover it.

The best cut of meat for beef soup is either a chuck roast, chuck shoulder, chuck-eye roast or top chuck – with chuck roast being my personal favorite. These are the most tender cuts. Despite what the name suggests, stew meat is not your best choice in a beef soup recipe!

How do you add richness to beef soup? ›

"If your broth is lacking in savory richness, try adding roasted onion, tomato paste, mushrooms, seaweed, soy sauce, or miso. These ingredients add umami flavor and depth to broth," she says.

The flour also helps protect the meat from the heat of the pan. Stick with wheat flour for this recipe. It acts as a thickener for the beef and barley soup while it is cooking. If you use any other kind of flour, your soup will end up watery.

The most important key to making stew meat tender is being sure to cook it for a long time. If you want super tender beef, you'll need to cook it on a low heat in a Dutch oven on the stove or a slow cooker for at least a few hours.

Pour in at least two cups of water; use 1 to 2 cups more if the beef is a tough cut or to reach the minimum amount recommended by the pressure cooker's manufacturer. Seal the lid and bring the cooker up to full pressure over high heat.

You can still pressure cook leaner pieces – like eye of round and top sirloin – but these work best if they've been stuffed, shredded or rolled (with other ingredients). Best cuts of beef to use: Chuck steak, Round Roast, Shoulder, Pot roast, Ribs, Brisket, Oxtail.

Benefits of a pressure cooker. Pressure cooking reduces the cooking time for most foods. This shorter cooking time can result in fewer nutrients being leeched out of food during the cooking process. Put another way, your food keeps more of the nutrients inside.

Stew meat is made from cuts of beef with lots of tough connective tissue, namely chuck and/or round. When you simmer it in a liquid, the connective tissue breaks down and becomes melt-in-your-mouth tender. That's why it's traditionally braised in stock and turned into beef stew.

We stew vegetables by letting them simmer in a bit of liquid and cooking fat. This is done in a covered pan, which can be placed in the oven, where the heat is more evenly distributed than in a casserole. When briefly stewed, vegetables retain their appealing colour and flavour.