The only cut you should use? Scraping up those caramelized brown bits from the bottom of your pot is going to give your stew a deep, rich flavor. Another important tip: make sure to cook your beef chunks in batches, giving each piece enough room to get really browned.
Otherwise, they'll steam, resulting in gray lumps. Beef stew doesn't need to be super, super thick. You'll most likely be using potatoes, and their starch will naturally thicken your stew. It's not a gravy—you shouldn't be adding a roux or flour or cornstarch.
If you do prefer your stew on the thicker side, though, you can toss your beef in flour or cornstarch before you sear it—the bits left behind will thicken your stew and add deeper flavor. This way, they won't fall apart and get mushy. But they should be fairly soft—otherwise, the stew will be a little more on the soupy side. If the pieces of meat aren't uniform in size, they will cook at different rates.
If some of the cuts are not suited for stewing, you'll be left with an uneven stew. Some parts will be tender, other pieces not so much. Equally, you don't want to be using the most expensive cuts, either. These cuts tend to be the tenderest to begin. While what we're aiming for by stewing is a tender outcome, we actually need cuts of meat that aren't already tender.
The most delicate cuts of the beef are the cuts that are going to be toughened up by the stewing process. Tender steak is good for grilling quickly at high heat, but it's not made for stewing slowly at low heat. There are a few contenders. You need a cut that's not fatty or tender, but that's lean and full of what's called collagen. This is your secret stewing ingredient. The more collagen, the better the cut is for stewing.
Collagen is also known as connective tissue. Collagen takes a long time to break down, but it gives you an incredibly tender cut of beef when it does.
That's why collagen-rich meat is best for stewing. The slow stewing process allows the collagen to slowly breakdown, gently tenderizing the meat as it does. Now then, there are a few cuts of beef that do the job well when you're looking for stewing meat, but the best cut is always going to be the classic chuck roast. The chuck roast is a collagen-heavy cut that comes from around the shoulder.
It's great for stewing and is also commonly used for roasting. The high collagen content allows you to simmer the beef for hours, slowly breaking down and tenderizing for a fall-off-your-fork finish. You buy the chuck roast as a large, whole cut, so you have to do the chopping yourself.
However, that works in your favor as you're able to dice it up into even-sized chunks for a uniform stew. Other contenders include the oxtail, which is packed full of collagen but is also quite fatty.
Oxtail is incredibly bony, too, so you'll have the de-boning process to deal with if you opt for this cut. The brisket is also a good choice for stewing and is often a great value too.
You can get a lot of brisket for not a lot of money. Brisket cooks best when it's cooked slowly, but it can be quite tough to break down due to a lack of collagen compared to the chuck roast.
Whichever type of stewing meat you choose, you'll need to make sure that it's as evenly cut as possible before you start cooking.
Uneven pieces will result in parts of the stew being cooked through and others being tough. And the key, of course, to a good beef stew is tender, really beefy -tasting meat. You'll find that in tough cuts with lots of connective tissue; over gentle, slow cooking, that tissue breaks down and makes the meat fork-tender, moist, and, well, deeply meaty.
If you use an already-tender cut, it will dry out and get tough as the stew cooks—best to go with a tough guy it's cheaper, too.
Our go-to for beef stew is boneless chuck roast. It doesn't dry out, and it offers up all the rich flavor you want in a beef stew.
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