Beef Stew with Root Vegetables and Côte-Rôtie Wine

Name: Beef Stew with Root Vegetables
Prep time: 30 min
Cook time: PT-472767H16M48S
Total time: PT-472767H16M48S
Cuisine: French
Ingredients: 6 sprigs of rosemary; 6 cloves; 5 bay leaves; Onion cut into about 8 pieces; 3 garlic cloves, crushed; ¼ tsp fennel seed; 1 tsp honey; tsp coarse salt; 5 black peppercorns; 4 cups red wine; 2 1/2 lbs stew beef; 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil; 1 onion, chopped; 3 parsnips, peeled and chopped; 1 carrot, peeled and chopped; ¾ cup mushrooms, chopped; 4 cloves garlic minced; 1 cup reserved marinade liquid; 1 sprig rosemary, minced; 1 tsp dried thyme; Pinch cinnamon; 1 tbsp ketchup; 1 tsp low sodium soy sauce; 1 ½ cups low sodium beef broth; Mashed potatoes for serving (optional)

Published: Feb 17, 2018 · Modified: Sep 6, 2022 by Cooking Chat · This post may contain affiliate links

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Slowly cooked Beef Stew with Root Vegetables features fall apart tender meat and a succulent sauce, served with mashed potatoes for some serious comfort food. Serve with a Côte-Rôtie or other big red wine for best results!

Planning ahead: We recommend marinating the beef for at least 6 hours. Make the marinade the night before or early in the morning you intend to serve it. If you are opening the Côte-Rôtie we paired with the stew, allow at least one hour to decant the wine. Disclosure: the wine was sent as a complimentary sample, the opinions are entirely my own.

Here’s a another recipe that started with the wine in mind.

I had a bottle of Côte-Rôtie to sample as part of my French Wine Picks for Valentine’s Day post with the Winophiles group. This big Syrah based red wine from the Northern Rhone certainly called for hearty fare. I decided Beef Stew with Root Vegetables would be just the thing!

Beef stew is such classic winter comfort food. After a modest amount of work to get it going, the Beef Stew with Root Vegetables slowly braises in the oven for three hours while you enjoy the smells wafting through the house. Make yourself a batch of mashed potatoes in the final hour of braising time for the full comfort food effect. Of course if you are cutting back on carbs you can skip that.

Making Beef Stew with Root Vegetables

As noted earlier, you want to do some advance planning when making this Beef Stew with Root Vegetables recipe. Start marinating the beef the night before you want to serve it, or early the morning you are having it for dinner. There’s about 30 minutes of active prep, prior to 3 hours of braising.

Lately I’ve been using my oven proof Copper Chef Pan for preparations like the beef stew with root vegetables, rather than the Dutch oven as it cooks things very evenly and is easy to clean (Amazon affiliate link included there in case you are interested in one). Either the copper pan or Dutch oven will work here.

I went heavy on the parsnips in this version of beef stew with root vegetables, but you can certainly mix up the root veggies you use.

You might note I used a bit of ketchup and soy sauce here. Not classic French ingredients but they add some good flavor!

If you are looking for slow cooker beef stew recipe, try our Chanterelle Beef Stew. That also comes with another great French wine pairing. And the same is true for our Beef Daube recipe!

Côte-Rôtie Wine Pairing

I had a bottle of 2013 Vidal-Fleury Côte-Rôtie Brune et Blonde ($72) waiting to serve with our Beef Stew with Root Vegetables.

Côte-Rôtie is an appellation in the Northern Rhone known for its steep vineyard slopes and Syrah dominated red wines. The name Côte-Rôtie translates into “roasted hillside”. It is comprised of two slopes, Brune and Blonde, reflected in the name of the wine we opened for our beef stew with root vegetables.

This 2013 Côte-Rôtie is peppery on the nose. Blackberry fruit, currant and notes of leather, complex. This Northern Rhone wine is made from 95% Syrah, 5% Viogner grapes.

I did my initial tasting immediately after opening this wine, then decanted for an hour before dinner– I noticed a bit late that the winery suggested two hours of decanting. But one hour did give the wine good opportunity to open up, featuring plush fruit and a long finish after decanting.

As you might suspect, the Vidal-Fleury Côte-Rôtie Brune et Blonde is excellent paired with our beef stew! A robust wine that stands up well to the hearty dish.

Vidal-Fleury was established in 1781, making it the oldest house in the Rhone. They produce wines from throughout the Rhone region. This link has information on the distribution of Vidal Fleury wines in the U.S.

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