Beef Stroganoff

As far back as I can remember my mom has made ground beef stroganoff. My mom has never been the cook of the family, but occasionally she found recipes in a magazine or in the newspaper that she wanted to try out on us. This was one of those recipes. The dish was a hit with everyone….except me. Me, who thought the only way to eat noodles was plain or with jarred marinara sauce. So whenever she made stroganoff, I ate plain-buttered egg noodles, and stuck my nose up.

Now, I won’t lie to you…I still love a good bowl of egg noodles with only butter. But, something changed as I got older. All of a sudden I started to like mushrooms…not just like, love; and that ground beef gravy became something I could eat without any noodles!

But again, something changed in my taste buds…or maybe it was just that I started to care more about what I was eating and feeding my family. I wanted to sub-out the condensed soup from this American family favorite adapted from the classic Russian dish and cook with simple better ingredients.

So here is is Simple Classic Ground Beef Stroganoff…in 30 minutes!

The Process

First, brown the beef, onion, salt, pepper, and rosemary until the beef is no longer pink. Now, I use dried rosemary, but that can be like little sticks if not cooked all the way down during the 30 min. The best way to avoid pulling a rosemary ‘stick’ out of your mouth is to grind or muddle the rosemary before adding to the pan.

Add in the garlic and cook for 1-2 minutes until fragrant. Remove the beef from the pan and drain.

Add the mushrooms to the pan with two tablespoons of water for moisture, put the lid on the pan and cook the mushrooms about half way- until slightly soft, approx. 5 minutes. I normally buy the fresh sliced mushrooms in the produce section. They cost is the same and they are already in the size of slice that I’m looking for, AND they are much cleaner so also a major time saver- WIN!

Once the mushrooms are soft, add the beef and onion mixture back to the pan.

Next, add the flour to the pan and stir until all of the flour is incorporated and you see no more white. Last thing you want is to taste uncooked flour! This takes about a minute or two.

Stir, stir, stir! The pan will look like this when its ready. The flour has coated all the beef and mushrooms and slightly browned.

Next, it’s time to add in the beef stock, balsamic, and Worcestershire. Bring to a boil and then simmer 10-15 minutes until the sauce has begun to thicken. Now is the time to taste to see if you need any more salt and pepper. Check out that stewy beefy goodness!!

While the beef mixture is simmering bring a pot of salted water to a boil and cook your noodles according to package directions. Add a tablespoon of butter to the noodles after draining.

Turn off the heat to the pan, but keep it on the burner. Add in the sour cream and the dried parsley, stir until completely mixed together.

Now, if you find here that you don’t have enough of a beefy flavor you can still add more Worcestershire, 1/2 tsp at a time. I find that if you use the beef bouillon cubes instead of the carton or canned beef stock you might find this to be the case. If using bouillon either add a tsp of Worcestershire or use less water to cube ratio. It is best, and recommended to use the canned or carton stock instead.

And there you have it! Delicious, beefy, gravy, goodness!

Recipe