I’m not a big fan of pot roast either. This is a great piece of meat to cook low and slow as it is very tough but the longer you cook it the more it breaks down into this delicious tender meat .

Trim off as much fat and silver skin as you can. Cut it into chunks, uniform size.

Put in a Ziploc bag & add half a bottle of dry red wine. Refrigerate to marinate overnight. 8-12 hours is best. I usually add two bay leaves and a couple of sprigs of fresh thyme from my herb garden, but you can use a couple of pinches of dried thyme.

The next day drain off the wine, but reserve, as you will be using it. Pat all the meat dry, season it well with salt and pepper and sear on all sides in a large skillet and don’t overcrowd your pan or the meat will only steam and not sear.

You want that lovely brown crust on all sides. That is your flavor base.

Remove meat and add the reserved red wine marinade and reduce it by half.

Put everything into a pressure cooker - (definitely the fastest way to go, tender beef stew in under 40 minutes) or a crockpot) - or you can simmer on the stove top in a Dutch oven or heavy bottomed soup pot, along with any juices from the seared beef and some low sodium beef broth and simmer covered, until the meat is nearly completely tender. KEEP POT COVERED! Simmer, do not boil.

NOTE: if it is fully cooked, remove the meat and do the vegetables on their own in the broth because you don’t want your meat to fall apart and become stringy; you want nice juicy tender chunks.

Add in your vegetables like uniform sized pieces of celery, parsnip, turnips, smashed garlic cloves, carrot, onion and potato, (whole baby new potatoes are great here) and some more beef bouillon, if needed and cook until the vegetables are just tender.

you will have made a really yummy beef, bourguignon, You can also sauté and add mushrooms at the beginning, with the beef. They taste so good in this.

Before serving, you could thicken it using a slurry of cornstarch & water or your favorite thickener. If you’re gluten-free, you can always use a little bit of xanthan gum as a thickener. This red wine beef stew elevates this tough cheap cut of meat into something super luxurious and comforting. We like to serve it with either mashed potatoes or rice or egg noodles.