The Meat You Should Be Buying For Tender Beef Stew (It's Not Ribeye)

One of the mistakes everyone makes when cooking beef stew is assuming the more expensive the meat is, the better the stew. But a stew's strength is in its versatility. The dish is fairly easy to make with ingredients that are both accessible and often quite cheap. Therefore, there's no need to break the bank on ribeye if you're looking to make a great beef stew. Instead, the best meat to use is an inexpensive cut of beef chuck.

Why? It comes down to an ingredient more commonly associated with skin care products than food: collagen. Typically, an overabundance of collagen is a bad thing when it comes to beef. Collagen-heavy steaks are often tough and hard to chew, but this is because steaks are typically cooked for brief periods of time. However, when collagen is present in stew, it actually becomes an asset. With slow cooker beef stew especially, meat is cooked at lower temperatures for a longer time, allowing the collagen to dissolve into gelatin. This not only creates a delightfully juicy texture, but it also adds thickness to the surrounding liquid.

There's a good reason chuck was the highest ranked beef in our ranking of cuts of meat used for stew. Taken from a cow's front quarters, beef chuck is richly marbled. All that fat, sinew, and collagen boil down as the stew cooks, creating a hearty beef taste and full-bodied broth. While many may quickly dismiss this cheap, typically rough cut of meat, do not discount it if you're looking to make a killer stew.

Pricier cuts, like ribeye or strip, that contain less collagen make for great steaks. However, if you put them in a stew for hours on end while cooking with low temperature, these normally succulent slices of meat can become chewy and unappetizing. So, it's not just that affordable cuts work fine for beef stew, they actually work better.

How do you best use chuck in your stew? Make sure to cut the beef into equally sized chunks; this ensures your meat cooks evenly, resulting in a more uniform stew. Don't scrimp on seasonings – add a little something extra to bring out that robust earthy flavor. Lastly, sear your beef well before letting it simmer.