I send Blake with a healthy homemade lunch every day of the week. He’s got a long haul to the office, an hour commute, and he needs to have food ready to keep his brain running optimally to concentrate.
So every Sunday I prep his lunch for the entire week in one shot. He’s a big guy and it takes a lot to fill him up and satisfy him. He cannot be hungry or he either won’t be able to concentrate or he’ll lose his mind and go on the rampage. Which isn’t good for anyone. So we tend to do a lot of crockpot meals and casseroles.
Lately variety has been an issue. We tend to make the same thing over and over again and he’s getting bored. So this weekend we decided to try something different. Different for us that is, the meal we decided on is actually a very common meal. We decided on a hearty beef stew.
Standard beef stew recipes call for flour for thickening so we had to figure out a substitute for that, I decided to go with potato starch. I have tried a lot of different ingredients for thickening gravies. I’ve tried tapioca starch, xanthan gum, rice flour, etc. Potato starch has always worked the best. The gums and tapioca starch tend to either thicken too much or make it a bit slimy.
Traditional beef stew also calls for potatoes. I went ahead and included them in this recipe since Blake tends to eat a few more carbs than I do. They’re also delicious and they help stretch the stew to make it last the whole week. If you’re looking to cut your carbs you can omit the potatoes or sub them out for something like turnips, daikon radish, or just add a bunch more of all the other veggies.
The stew turned out great and I’ll definitely make it again. Let us know how you like it if you try out this recipe. Also, if you use a thickener that works in texture that’s less carby than potato starch, I’d love to know what you use. Please share.
Paleo Crockpot Beef Stew (AIP, Whole 30)
Ingredients
- 2 pounds beef stew meat cut into 1 inch cubes
- 2 tablespoons potato starch
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon ground black pepper
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 teaspoon thyme
- 1 teaspoon parsley
- 1 teaspoon paprika
- 1 onion chopped
- 1 ½ cups beef broth
- 3 potatoes diced
- 4 carrots sliced
- 1 stalk celery chopped
- 1 cup frozen peas
Instructions
- Place meat in slow cooker. In a small bowl mix together the potato starch, salt, and pepper; pour over meat, and stir to coat meat with flour mixture. Stir in all other ingredients.
- Cover, and cook on Low setting for 10 to 12 hours, or on High setting for 4 to 6 hours.
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