Ground Beef Stew (With a Secret Ingredient)
Overloaded with vegetables and with a juicy tomato base, you won’t believe the secret ingredient in this tender and rich ground beef stew recipe that adds a punch a flavor.
My Grandaddy loved stews and soups and this ground beef stew was one of his favorites. He had a special bowl that he liked to eat stew out of and Grandmama always served him in that bowl.
Nowadays, I regularly make this stew for my own family. It lives up to its nickname, Poor Man’s Stew, as it’s fuss-free, economical thanks to the addition of ground beef, and not to mention delicious and incredibly flavorful! If you’ve ever had Cracker Barrel beef stew, this recipe is very similar and just as tasty.
It starts with a beef broth and tomato sauce, then it gets overloaded with tender ground beef and vegetables like potato, carrot, and green beans. I’ve included some variations below, but I love that stews are great and so easy to tweak and make your own. So play and have some fun with this stew recipe. Easily adapt it to what you have in your pantry and freezer, and include your favorite meat and vegetables.
But before we begin, I have one special ingredient that I do hope you’ll try though… Spicy Hot V8 Juice. This is what gives my hamburger stew such a full-bodied flavor without me having to cook it all day and add a gazillion different spices. Don’t worry though, it doesn’t make it hot at all – I promise!
Now, let’s get making this ground beef stew, which will warm you from the inside out (I just love stew and soup weather).
Recipe Ingredients
- Potatoes
- Carrots
- Onions
- Diced tomato can
- Green beans
- Beef bouillon cubes
- Ground beef
- Spicy Hot V8 Juice
How to Make Ground Beef Stew
Peel and dice your carrots, potatoes, and onion. Place in a large pot.
As a shortcut, you can use a 1-pound bag of frozen cubed hash browns for the potatoes.
Add the cans of tomatoes and the bag of frozen green beans to the pot.
Add four beef bouillon cubes and two cups of water, or your preferred beef stock.
Next, add in the Spicy Hot V8 Juice.
I am using two cans in mine but you can use one and taste it to see if you want to use the second.
I used two and it still wasn’t hot, just very flavorful.
Bring this to a boil and then reduce heat and cover and simmer for an hour or so, until vegetables are tender.
Add ground beef to complete your ground beef stew.
Stir in a teaspoon of salt.
You won’t need any black pepper because of the V8 Juice, but you should salt it to your personal taste. I like to salt it shortly before serving because that gives me a chance to taste the finished product and see how much it needs.
Serve your ground beef stew with crackers or cornbread.
I hope you get to make this heartwarming meal soon!
Storage
- This stew tastes even better reheated the next day if you can believe it. I use those Rubbermaid sandwich-size containers for easy reheating as single meals. Store it in the fridge for up to 4 days and simply reheat it in the microwave or on the stovetop.
- This ground beef stew freezes well too, so it’s still great to make if cooking for fewer people. Store it in the freezer for up to 3 months and thaw overnight before reheating as above.
Recipe Notes
- You can use beef broth in place of the bouillon cubes, but I prefer them because they are less expensive and take up less space when storing them (a small container of these cubes makes about as much broth as 25 cans of beef broth).
- You can also substitute some other bean of your preference for the green beans or add any number of other veggies. This might be celery, zucchini, frozen peas, , or leek.
- For the vegetables, you can use fresh or frozen ingredients. If using frozen, let them thaw briefly before adding to the stew.
- You don’t have to peel your potatoes before you dice and add them to the pot.
- My beef is already browned and waiting happily for me in the freezer to save making another mess. To see how I process large quantities of ground beef with ease, click here.
- You can assemble your stew in the morning and put it in your slow cooker all day on low.
- If using lean ground beef, there is no need to cook it ahead of time, just crumble it up or break off bite-size chunks and you can add it in raw. Otherwise, precook it and add-in afterward.
Recipe FAQs
What do you serve with ground beef stew?
Serve your hamburger stew as a with a fresh dinner roll, homemade biscuits, crackers, or cornbread. You can also serve it over couscous or rice.
By the way, you may also like these super easy and tasty stew recipes:
Smoked Sausage and Beef Stew in the Crockpot
Our Family’s Southern Chicken Stew Recipe
Budget-Friendly & Delicious Lentil Stew
This ground beef stew recipe featured on Meal Plan Monday
Ingredients
- 1-2 pounds ground beef, cooked and drained, or see note
- 2-3 carrots, diced
- 1 onion, peeled and chopped
- 5-6 potatoes, peeled and diced
- 2-3 cups frozen green beans
- 29 ounce can diced or crushed tomatoes
- 1-2 cans Spicy Hot V8 Juice I use two 6-ounce cans
- 2 cups water
- 4 beef bouillon cubes or 4 cups of beef broth
- 1 teaspoon salt more or less to taste
Instructions
- Place everything except the ground beef in a large pot. Bring to a boil and reduce heat to simmer. Cover and cook for an hour or until vegetables are at the desired tenderness.2-3 carrots, diced, 1 onion, peeled and chopped, 5-6 potatoes, peeled and diced, 2-3 cups frozen green beans, 29 ounce can diced or crushed tomatoes, 1-2 cans Spicy Hot V8 Juice, 2 cups water, 4 beef bouillon cubes
- Stir in ground beef and season with salt to taste. Serve hot with crackers or cornbread.1-2 pounds ground beef, cooked and drained, or see note, 1 teaspoon salt
Notes
- This can be assembled in the morning and put in your slow cooker all day on low.
- If ground beef is lean, there is no need to cook it ahead of time, just crumble it up or break off bite-size chunks and you can add it in raw. Otherwise, precook it and add-in afterward.
- Freezes well. I freeze mine in sandwich-size containers for easy reheating as single meals.
Nutrition
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I make mine almost the same way except I use a bag of frozen mixed veggies in place of the frozen green beans and fresh carrots. I also add a packet of onion soup mix for some added umph. Now I’m seriously needing a bowl of this yummy comfort food lol.
The only thing I would ad is corn-I love corn. I fully understand the satisfaction of eating certain things from a special bowl or your favorite beverage in your own chosen cup. Familiarity means comfort.I always had a Pyrex brown mixing bowl that was just the right size for chocolate pudding and to this day my grown sons refer to it as the chocolate pudding bowl.
I LOVE corn myself! I tend to go a little crazy with it. I always add at least double the amount a recipe calls for, lol.
I gave my kids a break from my corn madness this time, hehehe
But just you wait til next time….. ~winks~
Your bowl sounds like “Americana”. Does it have an eagle somewhere in the pattern?
I love corn, too! I add a can of creamed corn to most of my soup recipes to act as a thickener. Adds such good taste.
Do you thicken your stew? I grew up with a stew that much more of a gravy consistency, if it wasn’t thickened it was vegetable-beef soup. Maybe that was just what my Mother did. Also we rarely had actual beef stew—-most of the time every available head of cattle had to be sold to make the farm payment. So despite living on a farm, we bought meat and that consisted of hamburger because you could stretch that easier for a family of six. We also had meatless meals a fair amount. I mentioned making hamburger stew to a girlfriend one day and she wanted to know what that was. She had never heard of hamburger stew. The funny part of this is she is always talking about how hard up their family of five was when she was a kid, but they always had “beef” stew, and every meal was based on the meat of the day, and the menu planned around the meat. When she gets to talking like that I sit here and think it must be nice to be that hard up. lol. Most of the farmers that we knew back in the 40s-50s were quite hard up, because in the area of SD that I grew up, there were a lot of years that we had poor crops, lots of hail storms.
I will have to try using the V-8 in stew for something different. I will have to use the low-sodium, if the spicy comes in that form. When I make stew, I use canned potatoes and carrots, because every now and then I get them in the senior citizen commodities that I receive every month and I let them accumulate until I have enough to make a big pot of stew. My shoulders are bad and it is hard for me to peel and cut potatoes and carrots. I also never do any thing with sweet potatoes for the same reason, because I always thought the raw ones were hard to peel and cut.
Hey! Sometimes I thicken it, sometimes I don’t. A GREAT way to thicken stew though is to add a few spoonfuls of instant mashed potato flakes. I keep them around just for this reason! You’ll get that nice thick sauce you want that way.
Wow, I see what you mean about wanting to be hard up like your friend! lol If I ever had that much meat I’d be living large! My goodness…if thats hardship then what would you call us? lol
Those frozen diced hash browns work really well for potatoes in soup also. I know what you mean about peeling and such. My hands don’t like that so much at times, either.
Whenever Mama peeled raw sweet potatoes she always had to peel twice as many because I’d be right there eating the raw slices right out of the pot!!!
hehe
I never thought of using the spicy V-* juice in my stew. Have made stew with hamburger for years and years. With 6 kids and only hubby working for minimun wages for the first few years of our marrige we ate hambuger stew often. Only we called it Poor Mans Stew. LOL
I still make a kettle of it up but sure am going to try adding the V-8 to it.
I never thought of using the spicy V-* juice in my stew. Have made stew with hamburger for years and years. With 6 kids and only hubby working for minimun wages for the first few years of our marrige we ate hambuger stew often. Only we caled it Poor Mans Stew. LOL
I still make a kettle of it up but sure am going to try adding the V-8 to it.
aww, Robin, here’s a grandma hug for you baby. how precious that you saved that wonderful memory. I was a thrift store the other day and was perusing the china and glassware seeking Franciscan and Pyrex of course. My daddy always drank his coffee from one of those old Buffalo dinerware coffee mugs, they weighed a ton and kept your coffee hot forever. I have RA and can’t lift a heavy cup so I didn’t buy it. I wish I had now.
Christy honey I am so proud for your achievement. am going to try this one day next week for the crew, it sounds scrumptious. Yall enjoy this early fall weather! Blessings from Beautiful Dallas!
That looks so good! Cool weather is threatening to settle in and I love to cook winter recipes; they are so warm and satisfying. I’m going to fix this one in the crock pot very soon. Thank you!
BTW, I love your Grandaddy’s stew bowl. The pattern is so friendly and fun. I’m gonna have to see if I can find a few for own kitchen. 🙂
My Korean mom started making a similar stew like this almost 40 years ago. I made this for my brother and he was like “OMG, this tastes like mom’s”. She didn’t use V8, but I followed this exactly how it was written. Delicious and better the next day!