~824 cal · 64g protein · 43g carbs · 41g fat (estimated, per serving)
🍽️
Dark beef and beer stew with frites alongside
🇧🇪 Flanders
Flanders answers France’s wine-braised boeuf with beer, and no Fleming concedes the argument. The finishing move is a slice of mustard-slathered bread melted into the pot, thickening the gravy while the beer’s dark sugars round it out.
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Make it yours
Toggle a diet and the ingredients rewrite themselves with regional substitutes.
🥕 Vegetarian
🌱 Vegan
🌾 Gluten-Free
🥛 Dairy-Free
🥜 Nut-Free
🥚 Egg-Free
Ingredients
Serves 5 —
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2.5 lbs beef chuck, large cubes
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2 cups dark Belgian abbey beer (dubbel)
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3 onions, thickly sliced
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1 + 2 tbsp thick slice of bread + strong mustard
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1 tbsp brown sugar
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1 tbsp red wine vinegar
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2 bay leaves
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4 sprigs thyme
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3 tbsp butter
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for 5 thick fries or boiled potatoes, to serve
Instructions
1
Brown the beef (or mushrooms and jackfruit) hard in butter, in batches. Set aside.
2
Caramelize the onions in the same pot with the sugar, 10 minutes.
3
Return the beef; add beer, vinegar, bay, and thyme, scraping up every browned bit.
4
Spread the bread with mustard and lay it on top, mustard-down. Cover and braise at a whisper for 2.5 hours (40 minutes for the plant version), stirring the dissolved bread through at the end.
5
Season and rest 15 minutes. Serve with frites — Belgium accepts nothing else.
Flemish brown-café tradition.
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🌏 While it simmers — know your destination
📍
Flanders. Where beef surrenders to beer, slowly.
🗺️
Belgium. Beer in the pot, frites on the side, no apologies.
🌍
Europe. Village recipes guarded for generations.
The story behind this dish is up top — worth a read while the pot works.
👩🍳
Richard Moore & Kelsey Tucker
Recipes cooked, tested, and researched by the creators of Spin the Globe. How we build our recipes →
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