Level Up Your Beef Stew With This Sweet And Tangy Ingredient

Beef stew doesn't have to be exclusively savory to be delicious. Many cultures employ a variety of the five basic flavors to elevate their dish, creating recipes that can astound your taste buds while still leaving you with a hearty, satisfying dish. Meghan Yager, recipe developer and food photographer at Cake 'n Knife, spoke to Food Republic about how chutney is one of the easiest ways to upgrade your beef stew.

"Since you are working with rich meat, select a dark and sticky fruit chutney for the stew," Yager said. "I love to use mango, but you can also use tomato or tamarind." Just because stews use affordable cuts of beef doesn't mean their proteins won't have intense flavor. Yager told us that picking a blend that cuts through your beef's richness is vital to achieving those sweet and tangy notes that make every bowl pop with taste.

"If you can use a chutney that also has warming spices like cumin, coriander, or cinnamon, that's an extra bonus," Yager continued. Cinnamon, especially, is an unexpected warm spice that easily adds new dimensions to your stew when left to simmer in a pot. Rich and potent, even a single stick can impart a great depth of flavor with next to no effort.

Stew is a great recipe because it's so hands-off. It needs low and slow cooking times for the best texture and flavor, tenderizing tough beef and bringing out the full taste of any herbs and spices. However, Meghan Yager said that adding your chutney too early makes it lose much of its flavor.

"The best time to add in the chutney is during the last 15 to 20 minutes of simmering," Yager informed us. While you can add chutney at the beginning of a stew's simmer and still capture much of its flavor, long cook times can subdue its sweetness and tanginess. A short simmering time gives chutney the chance to meld with the other flavors in the pot, but still keeps it bright, effervescent, and immediately noticeable.

"You can also swirl in a small spoonful just before serving if you want a bolder flavor," Yager added. If you really want to maximize the taste of your chutney itself while allowing everyone to customize their own bowls, treating it as a condiment is the best choice. The flavors of the stew and chutney won't meld together quite as seamlessly as they would on the stove, but it's a great way to give your stew a quick punch of tangy sweetness that makes it come alive.