French Onion Beef Stew Recipe #shorts

French Onion Beef Stew Recipe

Everything you love about French onion soup — the deep, sweet caramelised onions, the rich winey broth, the molten gruyère crouton — married with slow-braised, fall-apart beef. One pot, pure comfort, absolutely unforgettable.

Prep time: 20 minutes
Cook time: 3 hours
Portions: 6
Difficulty: Easy — just patient

Ingredients

1200g beef chuck (cut into 5cm chunks)
6 large white onions (thinly sliced)
5 garlic cloves (minced)
300ml dry red wine
700ml beef stock
60g unsalted butter
2 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp plain flour
2 tbsp tomato paste
5 fresh thyme sprigs
2 bay leaves
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 tsp brown sugar
salt and cracked black pepper
6 thick sourdough slices
180g gruyère cheese (grated).

Method

Melt the butter with olive oil in a large cast iron pot over medium-low heat. Add the onions and brown sugar and cook slowly, stirring every 10 minutes, for 50–60 minutes until deeply golden and jammy.

Add garlic in the final 5 minutes. Meanwhile pat the beef dry, season generously and sear in batches in a separate hot pan until deeply browned on all sides. Set aside. Push the onions to the sides of the pot, add tomato paste to the centre and cook for 2 minutes. Dust flour over the onions and stir, cooking for a further 2 minutes.

Deglaze with red wine, scraping the base clean. Add the beef, stock, Worcestershire sauce, thyme and bay leaves. Bring to a gentle simmer, cover with a lid slightly ajar and braise on low heat for 2.5 hours until the beef is fall-apart tender and the broth is thick and glossy. Before serving, top thick sourdough slices with gruyère and grill until bubbling and golden.

Ladle the stew into deep bowls, float a crouton on top and finish with fresh thyme and black pepper.

Chef’s Notes

The onions are the soul of this dish — fifty minutes minimum, no shortcuts. They should be the colour of dark caramel and almost jam-like before anything else goes in.

Use a wine you’d actually drink; a Burgundy or Côtes du Rhône will add serious depth to the broth.

Chuck is the ideal cut — its collagen dissolves during the long braise into a naturally silky, thick sauce.

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