Almost Irish Stew (gluten & nightshade free)

This comforting take on Irish Stew from https://meatified.com is as rich as the original, but skips the gluten & nightshades. A delicious one pot meal to warm you from the inside out.

When your heritage is a mix of English & Irish like mine… you’ll find that a lot of the classic comfort food you crave is the yummy to eat, but near impossible to photograph kind.

Brown food. It’s the kitchen song of my people. And this Irish Stew is no exception. But it is deceptively glorious! You won’t regret making it, pinky promise.

This comforting take on Irish Stew from https://meatified.com is as rich as the original, but skips the gluten & nightshades. A delicious one pot meal to warm you from the inside out.

(Yes, a traditional Irish stew uses lamb, but my husband is a hater (sad face) and it’s so much more expensive here that it’s hard for me to justify purchasing.

Feel free to substitute it if you like, but make sure the lamb you choose is more on the lean side and doesn’t have any large pieces of fat or connective tissue or the cook time will likely need extending. The lack of lamb and taters are why I dubbed this Almost Irish Stew!)

This comforting take on Irish Stew from https://meatified.com is as rich as the original, but skips the gluten & nightshades. A delicious one pot meal to warm you from the inside out.

I will repeat that there are no real potatoes in this Irish stew, either. I kept this one tater free for my nightshade averse friends and the white sweet potatoes actually do a lovely job here. Something about them simmering away in that richly decadent beef broth really cuts the sweetness and amps up their savory side. Honestly, if you’re not paying attention, you probably wouldn’t notice the lack of the real thing.

This Irish stew is delicious as a one pan meal straight out of the oven, but you can throw some greens of your choice in at the end for a quick wilt to really level up the nutrition. Alternatively, if you want to carb up and snooze the night away, might I suggest spooning it over my Creamiest Parsnip & Cauliflower Mash? Because, reasons.

Print

Almost Irish Stew (gluten & nightshade free)

This comforting take on Irish Stew is as rich as the original, but skips the gluten & nightshades. A delicious one pot meal to warm you from the inside out.

  • Author: Rachael Bryant / Meatified
  • Prep Time: 15 minutes
  • Cook Time: 2 1/2 hours
  • Total Time: 2 hours 45 minutes
  • Yield: Serves 8
  • Category: stew, one pot
  • Method: oven

Ingredients

Scale
  • 2 lbs / 900 g lean stew beef, in 1 inch / 2.5 cm cubes
  • 2 tbsp / 30 ml avocado oil
  • 2 large yellow onions, about 1 1/2 lbs / 680 g
  • 1 lb / 454 g carrots
  • 6 cloves garlic
  • 1/2 cup / 120 ml red wine, optional
  • 5 cups / 1.2 L beef broth
  • 3 tbsp / 45 ml balsamic vinegar
  • 2 tsp / 10 g sea salt
  • 1/4 tsp ground black pepper, omit for AIP
  • 2 large sprigs fresh rosemary, or 1 tsp / 1 g dried rosemary
  • handful of fresh thyme, or 1 tsp /1 g dried thyme
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 1 lb / 454 g white sweet potato
  • 1/4 cup / 38 g sifted cassava flour

Instructions

BROWN: Preheat the oven to 325 F / 160 C & lower the oven rack so that there is room for a 6.5 quart Dutch oven with a lid on to fit comfortably. Set the Dutch oven on the stove top at medium heat and drizzle with the avocado oil. Working in two batches, lay the stew beef out in a single layer and brown on both sides. Transfer the browned beef to a bowl and repeat until all the meat is browned. (If the bottom of your Dutch oven starts to get rather dark in between batches, add a splash or two of water, scrape up the browned bits and pour that liquid off into the bowl with your browned meat.)

CHOP: While the meat is browning, chop each onion into 8 or so evenly sized wedges. Peel & chop the carrots into about 1/2 inch / 1.25 cm pieces. Peel the garlic and slice thinly.

SOFTEN: Once the beef is browned, reduce the heat a little and add a splash of water to the Dutch oven, scraping up any browned bits with a spatula. Tumble in the onions & carrots, cooking them until the onions begin to reduce and soften, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about a minute.

SEASON: Pour in the red wine, if using, and again stir up any browned bits. Add the beef broth, balsamic vinegar, salt & ground black pepper. Return the browned beef to the pot, along with any juices & stir through. Tuck in the rosemary, thyme & bay leaves, then cover with a lid and cook for 1 hour.

ADD: Peel the white sweet potato and cut into 1 1/2 inch / 3.75 cm pieces. Remove the stew from the oven & nestle the chunks of sweet potato into the Dutch oven, making sure they are covered by the cooking liquid. Cover with the lid and return to the oven for another 1 hour.

THICKEN: Take the Irish stew from the oven and remove the lid. Return the pot to the stove top over medium heat. Remove and discard the herb stems. The beef should be fork tender, but still hold its shape, see notes. Taste and adjust salt if needed. Measure the sifted cassava flour into a small Pyrex measuring cup, then add enough cold water to mix in into a smooth slurry with a spoon. Pour the cassava slurry into the Irish stew and stir it through. Cook until the stew has thickened and become a little glossy, about 5 – 10 minutes, then serve.

Notes

Yes, a traditional Irish stew uses lamb, but my husband is a hater (sad face) and it’s so much more expensive here that it’s hard for me to justify purchasing. Feel free to substitute it if you like, but make sure it’s more on the lean side and doesn’t have any large pieces of fat or connective tissue or the cook time will likely need extending. The lack of lamb and taters are why I dubbed this Almost Irish Stew!

For the best description of why cooking stew longer isn’t always better, this is a great read from Serious Eats.

For a thicker gravy, I like to add an extra chunk or two of sweet potato to the stew earlier on, then add those pieces to a blender along with some of the broth from the finished stew. Blend together until smooth, then stir through the stew to thicken to your taste.

This comforting take on Irish Stew from https://meatified.com is as rich as the original, but skips the gluten & nightshades. A delicious one pot meal to warm you from the inside out.
This comforting take on Irish Stew from https://meatified.com is as rich as the original, but skips the gluten & nightshades. A delicious one pot meal to warm you from the inside out.

8 comments

  1. Ummm how much garlic is needed? The instructions have garlic as an ingredient but it’s not listed in the ingredients list.

    1. I used 6 cloves, but it mellows out so much that you could use more if you like.

  2. this looks so yummy! Could the cassava flour be substituted for tigernut or sweet potato flour maybe? or omitted? We have a latex allergy and therefore cant do anything with cassava

    1. It’s only there to thicken things up, so it can definitely be left out! I wouldn’t try tigernut because it’s got that almost sweet thing going on and I’m not really familiar with sweet potato flour. What I would actually do is add in a few extra pieces of sweet potato and, when soft, take them out of the pot along with some of the broth. Blend the veg into the broth until smooth, then add that mixture back into the pan and stir it through. That way, you’re using the natural starches in the sweets as the thickener, no flour needed, and you can puree as much or as little of the sweets depending on how thick you want the finished texture to be. Hope that helps! 🙂

  3. This was fantastic! Made it with the cauliflower parsnip mash and loved both recipes. I will definitely make both of these again!

  4. Literally so good! I changed out the cassava for my own flour mix (cornstarch and white rice flour) and it came out super thick 😉 so yummy and I replaced potatoes with butternut squash and it worked very well thanks for the recipe !

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe rating 5 Stars 4 Stars 3 Stars 2 Stars 1 Star

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.