Healthy Beef Stew With Green Beans
This Healthy Beef Stew with green beans combines two favorite Greek recipes in one. The traditional Greek Beef In Tomato Sauce Recipe (Mosharaki Kokkinisto), and the Stewed Green Beans In Tomato Sauce (Fasolakia Ladera).
This combination creates a flavorful, hearty dish. Very fulfilling without any carbs. And for even more awesomeness, it’s all made from scratch, it’s packed with healthy fats (olive oil), and does not contain any gluten! And that’s what makes this stew a healthy, delish, weekly meal to have in your recipe tin.
What Type Of Meat To use For Stew
To make this healthy beef stew, you need either boneless beef round or chuck, cut into cubes. Otherwise known as beef for stew.
What Type Of Beans To Use
You can make it using either flat green beans (Romano beans) or thin round ones. You can also use them fresh or frozen. I personally used flat green ones. Since my father has planted a dozen and now we have a freezer full of them. Which means I’m going to spend the rest of the winter, eating them and try to find creative and yummy recipes to use them in. If you start seeing an abnormal amount of green bean recipes on my blog don’t get curious it’s just me unloading my freezer!
Bottom line: Flat green beans add more flavor to the stew while round thin ones a nicer crispier texture.
Carb-Free Healthy Greek Beef Stew
And since I’m an old-fashioned person, I made this stew on the stove top. You can, of course, make it using the slow cooker like a normal 2018 human being.
It took me two hours to make on the stovetop which is kinda quick for a stew. But that really depends mainly on the piece of meat. For example the age of the animal and how long it has stayed in the fridge to ripen (not rot). I refrigerated mine for two days. And also cut it in small bite size pieces.
Also if you want to cook a speedy green bean beef stew, use frozen beans that have slightly softened in the freezer. Therefore less cooking time required.
SERVE IT WITH: A big piece of Feta cheese. We all do it here in Greece.
A Few Tips For Cooking Tender Beef
- Beef gets more tender when left in the fridge uncovered for a few days. That is if it’s a freshly cut beef and not one that has been sitting in the butchers’ fridge for a while already.
- When cooking parts like round or chuck that do not contain enough fat, cut them as small as possible to reduce cooking time.
- Brown and sear the meat thoroughly on all sides. This helps keep the meat juicy on the inside without losing its texture while cooking. I find olive oil is healthy enough for searing and it’s what’s used in this recipe (see cooking with olive oil).
Healthy Beef Stew With Green Beans (Gluten-Free)
Ingredients
- 6 tablespoons olive oil
- 2 kg / 4,6 lb lean beef for stew cut into cubes
- 1.5 kg / 3.4 lb green beans either flat green or thin ones
- 1 large onion minced
- 3 garlic cloves minced
- 1 large ripe tomato grated (about 150 grams)
- 3 tablespoons tomato paste
- 60 ml olive oil
- a handful of fresh parsley chopped
- 2 dried bay leaves
- salt & pepper
Instructions
- Heat the 6 tablespoons of olive oil in a cooking pot over high heat.
- Brown the meat on each side. Adding no more then 5-6 pieces at a time into the pot.
- Once you seared and browned all of the meat, set aside in a large bowl. Add the onion and garlic and a splash of olive oil if needed. Reduce heat to medium and cook until softened.
- Pour in a cup of water, the tomato paste, and grated tomato. Stir with a flat wooden spoon and scrape the bottom of the pot.
- Add meat back to the pot and cover with water.
- Simmer for about 1 hour or until meat feels slightly tender when you prick it.
- Season with salt and pepper and add the bay leaves.
- Add the green beans and parsley and cook for another hour or so. Until beans are cooked and sauce has reduced by half.
Love your recipes. The beef stew recipe says 1.5 kg fresh spinach leaves, is that in addition to the green beans or is that a misprint?
Hi, Terry thank you. That was a typo. It was meant to write beans there but my plugin keeps rewriting things. Sorry about that.
This recipe looks amazing.I can’t wait to make it! Thank you so much for sharing!! PS: 2kg of garlic?! Hihi ?
Hi Helen, glad you like it. Now as for the garlic it’s this recipe plugin that fills things on its own sometimes. With 2kg of garlic, now that would be a stew to remember ?