Slow Cooker Beef Stroganoff is the stew version of traditional Beef Stroganoff. An incredible slow cooked beef that’s fall-apart tender smothered in a creamy Stroganoff sauce with buttery garlic mushrooms, it’s made with economical stewing beef yet tastes like a million bucks!
Beef Stroganoff
You know that anything that involving the words “slow cooked” and “beef” is going to be a winner. And this one is a ripper!
It’s the slow cooked version of classic Beef Stroganoff. Besides the fact that it takes 8 hours in a slow cooker instead of 15 minutes on the stove, this stew version of Stroganoff differs from the traditional version in a few ways:
Fall apart tender chunks of beef rather than thin strips that are just cooked so they’re juicy inside;
Made with economical stewing beef rather than good to high quality well marbled steak (essential for a really great traditional Beef Stroganoff); and
Deeper flavour in the sauce – owing to the long cook time. You can’t shortcut this kind of flavour!
This slow cooked beef melts in your mouth and the depth of flavour in the sauce is magnificent!
What you need for Slow Cooker Beef Stroganoff
Here’s what you need to make this incredible slow cooked beef dish! It’s the same ingredients as traditional Beef Stroganoff except using economical stewing beef and more sauce so the beef is submerged while slow cooking!
Use Chuck Beef or other economical stewing beef. Do not waste your money on pricier cuts like sirloin!
Best cut of beef for SLOW COOKER Beef Stroganoff
This recipe needs to be made with economical stewing cuts that need to be cooked for a long time to become tender, such as:
- chuck beef
- boneless beef ribs
- beef cheeks
- gravy beef
In contrast, traditional Beef Stroganoff, which is cooked quickly on the stove, is best made with pricier cuts suitable for cooking as steaks, such as boneless rib eye/scotch fillet and sirloin.
Just a few notes on some of the other ingredients:
Sour Cream – this is what makes Stroganoff Sauce creamy. It’s added at the end so there’s no risk of it splitting during the slow cooking time;
Dijon Mustard – for flavour and thickening, a traditional ingredient in Beef Stroganoff Sauce; and
Flour – thickens the sauce. See recipe notes for gluten free option!
How to make Slow Cooker Beef Stroganoff
This is pretty much made just like traditional Beef Stew – entirely hands off for most of the cook time!
Brown beef aggressively. The better the browning, the better the flavour in the sauce and on the beef!
Sauté the onion and garlic, mix in the flour;
Add everything into the slow cooker (or pot);
Slow cook 8 hours on low or 5 hours on high (see recipe for stove and IP/pressure cooker);
Sauté mushrooms in garlic and butter;
Whisk the sour cream with some of the liquid in the slow cooker – this will ensure you don’t end up with sour cream specks in the sauce (can’t mix vigorously otherwise the beef crumbles!);
Stir mushrooms and sour cream into sauce;
Serve over mash, pasta, egg noodles or even rice!
Here’s what it looks like straight out of the slow cooker.
And the beef…..fall apart….. juicy…..sucked up all the flavour of that Stroganoff Sauce…
I’ve made this as a stew but it could just as easily be transformed into a chunky soup with potatoes and vegetables. That way, it would also be a meal in one, rather than preparing noodles or mash to serve it over.
I’ve popped notes in the recipe for how to make it into a soup – you just add extra liquid to make the sauce slightly thinner which also increases volume so you can add more “stuff” into it. 😇
Otherwise, if you’re sticking with the Slow Cooked Beef Stroganoff Stew as written, serve it over one of these:
pasta or wide egg noodles (traditional);
mashed potato (also common for Stroganoff);
rice; or
low carb alternatives: Creamy Cauliflower Mash or Cauliflower Rice
Enjoy! – Nagi x
PS Also, for chicken lovers – > CHICKEN Stroganoff. Because I sauce this good can smother many things.
Watch how to make it
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Slow Cooker Beef Stroganoff
Ingredients
- 1.75kg/ 3.5lb beef chuck or other stewing beef , cut in 4cm / 1.5” cube (Note 1)
- 1.5 tsp each salt and pepper
- 2 tbsp oil
- 20 g/ 1 tbsp butter , unsalted
- 1 large onion , halved then sliced into 1 cm / 2/5″ slices
- 4 garlic cloves , minced
- 7 tbsp flour , plain / all purpose
- 4 tbsp Dijon Mustard
- 1 litre / 1 quart beef stock/broth , reduced salt
- 1 1/2 cups sour cream , full fat best
Garlic Butter Mushrooms:
- 3 tbsp/ 45 g butter , unsalted
- 700 g / 1.2 lb mushrooms , sliced into 0.5cm thick slices
- 3 garlic cloves , finely minced
- 1/2 tsp salt and pepper
Serving:
- Pasta, wide egg noodles, mashed potato
- Chives for garnish
Instructions
- Season beef – Pat beef dry then sprinkle with all the salt and pepper.
- Brown beef – Heat 1 tbsp oil in a large heavy based pot or skillet* over high heat. Add beef in a single layer (not squished) and brown aggressively all over – 4 minutes or so. Remove and repeat with rest of beef, adding more oil as needed.
- Sauté aromatics – Let the pot cool down a bit then return to stove. Melt half the butter, then cook garlic and onion for 3 minutes until softened.
- Add flour – Sprinkle the flour across the surface, then stir. Add the mustard, and stir – it will look gluey, that's ok, it will dissolve.
- Add stock – While stirring, pour in about half the beef stock then mix so the flour mixture dissolves into the liquid. It will thicken quite quickly into a gravy-like consistency .Switch to a whisk if needed, to make it lump free. Then add remaining stock, stir well, scraping the bottom of the pot, and bring to simmer. Cook using chosen method below.
SLOW COOKING – choose method:
- Slow cooker: Transfer all liquid into slow cooker. Add beef, then slow cook 8 hours on LOW or 5 hours on HIGH.
- Stove: Add beef into pot. Cover with lid and adjust heat to low/medium low so the it's simmering gently. Simmer 2 hrs (check at 1.5 hrs) until beef beef falls apart easily.
- Instant pot: SKIP FLOUR, follow Note 5 Gluten Free option. 40 minutes on high, same method as slow cooker.
- Other pressure cookers: 40 minutes on high, same method as slow cooker.
GARLIC BUTTER MUSHROOMS:
- Melt half the butter in a large skillet over high heat. Add half the mushrooms and cook until almost golden (~3 minutes). Add half the garlic, salt and pepper, cook until golden. Remove, repeat with remaining butter, mushrooms and garlic.
FINISHING STEW:
- Mix sour cream with 1.5 cups of liquid from slow cooker (Note 2), then gently stir into stew – careful, the beef is delicate!
- Gently stir in mushrooms.
- Serve over noodles, pasta or mashed potato, sprinkled with chives!
Recipe Notes:
- Chuck
- Boneless beef ribs*
- Gravy beef or other beef labelled as “stewing beef”
- Beef cheeks**
** If 200g/7oz or less, cook whole so it looks like this beef cheeks recipe but with Stroganoff Sauce. Chopped cheeks twist and skew once slow cooked – looks better to serve whole (or at most, halved). Other beef cuts ok to use – great for slow cooking but not as juicy all the way through as there are more lean patches:
- Brisket
- Blade roast
Nutrition Information:
Stew Fever!
For fellow lovers of slow cooked goodness, rich sauces and fall apart meat…
Life of Dozer
Furniture shopping with Dozer – he certainly made himself at home!! 🤣
Fantastic recipe, I cook it on high in my slow cooker, I’ve done it for 3-4 hours before and the meat has been really tender (just depends on your cut). Have come back to this time and again, it’s my kids favourite (9 yo and 4 yo) and we serve it with fresh fettuccine. Delish!
I used the slow cooker method and it was 100% delicious. One of the best tasting stroganoff dishes I’ve ever had/cooked. Beautiful!!
This was the best beef stroganoff I’ve ever had – and I had it a fair amount growing up! Had an incredible depth of flavour which the quicker version of this recipe sometimes lacks.
I did halve the recipe as I only had 600g of gravy beef. I was using the pressure cooker method, so I reduced the cook time down to 35 mins which was spot on.
Thanks again Nagi!
This as a hit with the family! Great taste and the meat just fell apart. I used the slow cooker method.
This will certainly be made a few more times this winter.
I’ve made this a few times, I fry off the meat only, then just put onions & garlic sprinkle some flour over, mix then pour in stock mixed with mustard all straight into slow cooker for 6-8hrs on low. No lumps ever. It Is so tasty, my hubby loves it with pasta, and my elderly mum loves it too as it is so tender for her.
Definitely the best tasting strog I’ve made.
I have tried many of Nagi’s recipes but this one was a really bad one. I have also tried many Stroganoff recipes and this is the worst one. I’m specifically referring to the pot method and I think if you use the slow-cooker method, this might be amazing.
Let’s start from the beginning. The prep was wayy too long. Cutting steak, mushrooms, weighing everything. I mean fine, it’s the usual and would have been fine if the cooking method was not so hard.
I usually make my stroganoff with beef strips and they are super quick to cook and make tender. These beef chunks not only took ages to brown, it took ages to cook. I used beef chuck, cut into 4cm like instructed. Took 3 hours to tenderise in the pot method and it required lots of stirring otherwise you’ll end up with it burning at the bottom of the pot, which still sort of happened to mine. The taste was the same as all the other stroganoff recipes I have tried (maybe 3 others) so unless I’m going for a slow cooker method, I won’t be trying this again.
I don’t know what happened to yours but this is literally my favourite beef strog recipe ever.
I noticed a big difference in taste between butcher versus supermarket casserole beef and obviously every appliance is different. I seared in a cast iron pan and then added to the slow cooker and it was divine. Didn’t take as long in my slow cooker but I check as I go along for tenderness. I don’t think it’s the recipes fault honestly, it’s probably related to the cooking method you chose and the heat you had it on.
This recipe was amazing. The sauce is beautiful and rich. 10/10
Hi Nagi, I’m wondering if you sauté the mushrooms in the same pan (then set aside to be added later) before you brown the beef, would the umami from them add a deeper richness to the dish.
Hi Naji. I am wondering what slow cooker you recommend? I’m in Australia. Interested in the Breville but Aldo interested in what you think! Thank you 🙂
Seriously delicious, the sauce is so good it makes me like mushrooms!! This is such a far cry from the stroganoff of my childhood, which put me off strog for a long time. I have also made the quick version, also delicious, but this is so luxurious with the beef falling apart. Love it, like all of Nagi’s recipes!
Delicious. Will definitely be making that again.
Has anyone tried greek yoghurt As a substitute for sour cream?
Hi Sharon. I have used Greek yogurt in Stroganoff recipes but have not tried it for Nagi’s recipe. I used it because I had it in the fridge and did not have sour cream at the time.
It turned out just fine for me. Can’t give you more info, just that it worked out fine and tasted like Stroganoff.
Great meal, real easy to cook in the slow cooker. Next time I’ll cook the onions & garlic remove them from the pan then make the roux then add the onions back for a simmer, the flour mix got hooked up in the onions and I had to whisk frequently while slow cooking. Couldn’t stop taking spoonfuls while cooking – delicious.
This is an easy excellent recipe. Added an extra onion that I finely diced to absorb and thicken the sauce. Added a little extra meat and made into 2 dishes. One with pasta and other with mashed creamy potatoes. Hard to tell which was better.
I chopped up some T-bone steaks I had kicking around the freezer and decided to try this recipe in my pressure cooker to keep the meat tender. What a stroke of luck that Nagi had a stroganoff recipe – even without the sour cream (which I totally forgot), this was amazing!! I don’t generally like beef very much, but this is delish. My two-year-old actually asked for seconds, and he hates everything!
God love 🥰 him, you took too long mum I was tired 😴
Such a delicious recipe, one of the best stroganoff’s I’ve ever had!
Despite the apparent updated recipe over the flour lumps, I still had huge lumps after adding flour and mustard. I was also confused because it says to use half the butter then never instructs what to do with the rest. In the end I used all of it and it made no difference. The lumps still persisted.
I was worried at first, but I used the slow cooker method and by the time it was done, the lumps were gone. So that was a relief. I do think something is amiss in those steps though. Mine was really thick so I might even reduce the flour next time, and it might help the lumps.
I also misread how much sour cream I needed so I only had a 300ml pot but that was plenty in the end.
Anyway, I’m glad the lumps worked themselves out and it was so delicious. It made so much and I froze a heap for hubby to have while I’m away this weekend.
Thanks, Nagi for yet another great recipe. I will forever be baffled about the lumps, but I will certainly make it again knowing they will disappear.
I’m in the states, so maybe this won’t work if you are elsewhere, but… try Wondra flour, it mixes perfectly, thickens perfectly, and never lumps. I wouldn’t be without it.
I have lost count how many times I have made this, but it is the only Beef Strog I will ever make. It is amazing and a big hit with everyone who’s tried it.
Deliciousness again 😋 I was worried about lumps in the roux, the flour stuck to the onions and didn’t blend well. It all worked out in the end though
Nagi!! This is delicious! I made it in my slow cooker and it has turned out perfectly! So delicious, rich, creamy! My whole family gave it 5 stars! I even took the leftovers to my parents to try, even more delicious on day 2! Thank you!
I’m only part way through making this at the moment, but I had to comment to say that even with the apparently updated instructions, I found it impossible to break up the lumps of flour. I ended up fishing out as much of the onion as I could before using my stick mixer on the sauce. I actually wonder if something is missing from the instructions because it fails to say what to do with the 2nd half of the butter.
If I were to make this again, I’d cook the onions and garlic in the first half of the butter before taking them out of the pot and setting aside with the beef. I’d then use the 2nd half of the butter with the flour and stock to make a roux, because I don’t usually have trouble with lumps, so can only assume that the presence of the onion makes it impossible to break up the lumps properly in this case.
She does tell what to do with it- it’s in the garlic butter mushrooms segment. Did you use a whisk?
Mine was lumpy too and I was thinking of trying the same but it ended up smooth in the end so I didn’t sweat it too much. I think I will try taking out the onion and doing the roux separately next time though.