Beef Bourguignon (Julia Child Recipe)
Tender fall apart chunks of beef simmered in a rich red wine gravy makes Julia Child’s Beef Bourguignon an incredible family dinner.
Julia Child’s Beef Bourguignon (Boeuf à la Bourguignonne in French) is a world wide loved classic for a reason. This is one recipe where you want to take your time cooking it, drinking a glass of wine or two while preparing it, and show it a lot of love. Every step is worth it.
In our recipe, we included four different cooking methods to make your life easier: traditional oven, stove top, slow cooker and instant pot or pressure cooker methods. Whichever one you choose, you will not be disappointed!
Adapting this Beef Bourguignon from Julia’s best seller, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, this dish raises a simple beef stew to an art form and is not too difficult to make at all. You don’t need to be an experienced cook to try this in your kitchen at home.
Even though it’s been remade all over the world countless times by families over the decades, it’s an extremely forgiving recipe. We cut out a few steps from Julia’s original to make it a little easier and maybe a little less intimidating. Still, I didn’t want to mess with something so perfect.
Julia Child = Genius.
Beef Bourguignon (Julia Child Recipe)
Beef Bourguignon (Julia Child Recipe) I don’t know about you but when reading the original recipe from Julia’s book, I immediately became as nervous as Amy Adams’ Julie in the movie Julie and Julia. SO MANY STEPS. So I poured myself a wine and began my mission to follow AT LEAST one recipe in my life as best as I could.
The results were unbelievable. I can honestly say I have never enjoyed a stew as much as I did when it was done.
Trying it again and skipping only a couple of steps to attempt to cut down on some the work and washing extra pots; adding a little more of this and that, I have to say the results were just about the same but with a little added flavour.
What did we do differently?
- Julia’s first step is to simmer bacon rind and fat in water for 10 minutes, remove then proceed to fry lightly in oil. We skipped this and just went straight to frying until crisp and browned.
- When beef and veggies are in, Julia suggests to set the casserole in the oven for 4 minutes, then toss the meat and return to the oven for 4 minutes more. We skipped this also and opted to continue cooking over stove top. This didn’t make a difference.
- We added a couple extra cloves of garlic feeling we missed that particular flavour, and added more herbs into the stew.
- Also, Julia prepares her pearl sized onions seperate from the Beef Bourguignon itself, adding them in near the end of cooking. My family completely skipped over the onions in their bowls, eating everything else and leaving them behind. So, the second time around, I added them in with all of the ingredients, saving a pot and stove top cooking time, and the results were better for us. We saved the onions!
- Lastly, Julia asks us to wash out the casserole and return the beef and bacon to it at the end of the recipe. This I couldn’t bring myself to do, wanting to keep every single lick of flavour in that pot.
I was left craving this the next day, so we made it again and again. No regrets.
Tips to an incredible Beef Bourguignon
- Taste test: We taste tested it immediately after cooking and found that the wine was an extremely strong flavour in the gravy. PLEASE don’t worry or try to adjust it straight away! Let it rest for 15 minutes and the flavours begin to settle into each other. The wine flavour mellowed out and we LOVED it. If you’re serving it the next day, the flavours are even better.
- Wine: Use a good quality wine. It makes all the difference in Beef Bourguignon. We used a $20 bottle of Pinot Noir. It doesn’t need to be expensive, but try to get a good quality brand. Why would you want to do that for a stew? If you’re going to eat it, IT’S WORTH IT. You will enjoy every mouthwatering mouthful.
- WINE substitution: If you’re worried about the amount of wine, reduce it to 2 cups and up the stock to 3 cups (for oven and stove top methods only). If you don’t want to use wine, you can leave it out all together and use all beef stock. However, I cannot guarantee the flavour. The wine makes this incredible.
- Beef cuts: I tried this with brisket, chuck steak and stewing beef (yes, the third time I made it was in our Instant Pot/Multi Cooker). Our favourite result was using brisket. The meat fell apart so beautifully and tasted better than the others. Having said the though, you can use whichever stewing beef you can find or have on hand.
- Don’t skip the buttery garlic mushrooms. When I tried adding them in from the start, they had shrivelled up into nothingness by the end. They really are incredible added in fresh from the pan, plump and buttery. I couldn’t resist adding some garlic to them along with some salt and pepper. It added a lot more flavour to the end result.
What do you serve with beef bourguignon?
Definitely Mashed potatoes! You can also serve it with plain rice or noodles. There is so much flavour in this, you need a fairly plain side to go with it.
How do you make a beef bourguignon?
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