Learn how to make Chef John’s Hawaiian-Style Beef Stew, a rich, tangy-sweet stew from slow-simmered beef in a savory sauce that gives the whole dish a strong umami flavor. The rich broth and medley of tomatoes, potatoes, and carrots make this dish one to keep on standby for dinner. Serve it as is or over a fluffy bed of rice for maximum island comfort!

Chef John’s Hawaiian-Style Beef Stew

Hawaiian style beef stew. To get started, get a nice piece of beef chuck. Cut that into about 1 and 1/2 inch pieces. I’m going to season it right on the board by sprinkling over some kosher salt, followed by half the amount of the flour called for. And what we’ll do is give that a thorough tossing. Heat up some vegetable oil in our stew pot set over high heat. And we will transfer those freshly fled pieces of meat into the pot. And then we’ll proceed to brown those very well. But anyway, once that meat’s been transferred into a bowl, we’ll set that aside for now. and we’ll reduce our heat to medium high. And we will transfer in our roughly chopped up onion. And we’ll cook that stirring for a couple minutes, at which point we’ll transfer in about three tablespoons of tomato paste. We’ll cook this stirring for about 3 or 4 minutes. Once we’ve toasted that tomato paste a little bit, we’ll sprinkle in the rest of our flour. And we’ll cook that stirring for a few minutes to take off that raw pasty edge. We will dump in our plain tomato sauce. Follow that with some beef broth. Stir that in and raise our heat to high. Wait for this to come to a boil. And while it does, we can add some wishes sauce as well as a whole bunch of soy sauce. And then once things do come up to a boil, transfer in our browned beef along with any and all accumulated juices. Give that a stir and reduce our heat to low. Cover this tightly. And we will let it simmer for 1 hour. And what we’ll do at this point is go ahead and add our black pepper plus a few shakes of cayenne. We’ll also add in our stew veggies. And then we’ll cover this back up. And we’ll let it simmer gently on low for another hour. We’ll simply continue simmering uncovered until our meat is nice and tender.

33 Comments

  1. Thank you! My late husband loved stew that way. His family was from Maui. The first time we ate dinner at their house they had beef stew with rice! I'd never had stew like that, but it was good!

  2. The fact that so many people think that Hawaiian food = add pineapple is kind of sad.

    I'm not a well traveled man…but I think they eat food without pineapple too.

    Also "Hawaiian pizza" is Canadian. Not Hawaiin. Let that cook your noodle for a minute.

  3. I feel like I need to say this because it seems like people think anything Hawaiian is adding pineapple. But Hawaiian beef stew compared to other beef stews is different than others because it includes coating the meat in flour and frying it as well as the inclusion of soy sauce. Hawaiian beef stew also does not really include rosemary, bay leafs, red wine or thyme the flavor profile is much more tomato forward than beef and it’s served over white rice typically. It was one of my favorite Hawaiian dishes growing up give it a try!!!!

    Edit: don’t know if it’s typical Hawaiian either but all my family seasons their beef with lawrys seasoned salt!

  4. This looks lovely, but what makes it Hawaiian? It looks very similar, thus far, to British equivalents, except for the soy (which I generally add for seasoning anyway)

  5. One of the campers at the campground where I was week night manager made the best fried taters, she showed me her trick of using a small paper bag with flour and a few shakes to evenly coat the potato pieces before frying. I use it often when coating anything lightly with flour and seasonings. The leftover flour goes into the grease to make a roux for gravy.

  6. Stir for a few minutes. Once you've done that, you stir for a few minutes. After that, you stir it for a few minutes

  7. I'm going to have to try this. Probably with pork, instead of beef…and, with pineapple. It does say Hawaiian, after all.