Green Chile Beef Stew

Here’s a confession for you:  I would eat savory food any day of the week over sweet stuff.  ANY DAY. Which is actually quite the shock since I spend so much time baking and quality-control checking for the blog…but nonetheless savory food is my weakness.

Especially if it contains garlic, cheese, and butter, oh my!

When it comes to easy dinner recipes this takes the (savory) cake!  Crock pots are a god-send, and this is even one of those that you can just throw everything in as-is and not have to cook most of it beforehand.  You know what I mean…those crock pot recipes where you have to brown the meat, cook the onions, roast the veggies, etc etc and THEN put it in the crock pot to cook?  No thank you…

I made this stew the night before and Nate and I have been eating off of it for 2 days now.  Not that we mind though, since it IS delicious!  It has the perfect amount of heat, texture, and flavor, and when you combine it with a little cheese and crumbled tortilla chips on top?  Winner winner, beef stew dinner!

I’m going to be honest here though:  I would recommend making this overnight, refrigerating it, and then skimming the fat off the top to make it a little healthier.  And you could certainly use ground turkey, ground chicken, or even just a ton of beans as ways to make this healthier…but I love the flavor of beef in it.

The funny thing is I made this stew in the middle of the “heat wave” we’ve been having here…and finally it’s supposed to snow today!  I think the entire Denver metro area can thank me for the snow…it’s all about the wishful thinking

GREEN CHILE BEEF STEW

• 1 pound lean beef, stew meat or ground
• 1 15-oz can black beans
• 2 cups frozen corn
• 1 onion, chopped
• 1 large potato or 2 small potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 1 15-oz can Rotel
• 1 8-oz can fire-roasted green chiles, chopped
• 4 cups beef stock
• 1 tsp cumin
• 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• pinch of salt
• cheese and tortilla chips, optional

Add all of the ingredients to a crock pot.  If you’re using ground beef I recommend you crumble it up with your hands a bit to allow for even cooking, and so you don’t have random balls of ground beef in there.  Stir it all together and cook on low for 7-9 hours.  Serve hot with cheese and tortilla chips.

This is such a hearty, comforting, and healthy stew…perfect for a winter lunch or dinner, and healthful enough to make you feel better about eating so many cookies, cupcakes, and brownies.  Not that I know about that…

Tagged as: easy beef stew, easy crock pot stew recipe, green chile stew, winter dinner ideas