The best beef stew is salty, hearty, and meaty. It should warm you up on a cold winter’s day and stick to your bones so you have enough energy to go out and cut down lumber. I’m assuming people who eat canned beef stew do stuff like that, right?
My parents are pescaratians, so I never had beef stew growing up. In fact, this taste test was the first time I had ever even had beef stew. To confirm all my beef stew-related hunches during this tasting, I enlisted the help of my canned beef stew-loving boss, Justine Sterling. Together, we tasted every option we could find to find the best canned beef stew just for you!
- Campbell’s Savory Pot Roast
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This was our intern, Angela’s, favorite canned beef stew. She thought the meat was more enjoyable in this one than any of the other cans of beef stew we tried and I agree! It’s really giving pot roast vibes. If you don’t have a hundred hours or a crock pot to make an actual pot roast, grab a can of this stuff!
Credit: Merc / Instacart
- Progresso Beef Pot Roast with Country Vegetables
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If it was up to just me, this would have been the best canned beef stew. That being said, it sits somewhere between a stew and a soup (Rachel Ray would calls a “stewp”). It’s brothier than the other canned beef stew choices on this list. It is still, however, very much beef stew! It has great veggies and plenty of meat. It tastes and smells super salty and savory. If you’re looking to dip your toes into the world of beef stew, this is the best beef stew for you.
Credit: Merc / Instacart
- Dinty Moore Beef Stew
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Dinty Moore makes beef stew for people who love beef stew. This is not a beef stew for a novice. This is the best canned beef stew for professionals. People who live in log cabins in the middle of the woods. People who know how to build a fire. People who haven’t spoken to another human in months. That’s who this beef stew is intended for. It was a little much for me, but Justine loved it. It has a thick, gravy-like stew texture that so many of the other canned beef stew options lacked. The veggies are perfectly cooked. The meat is plentiful. Beef stew lovers, buy this immediately!
Credit: Merc / Instacart
Best Campbell’s
Best Soup/Stew
Best of the Best
Other Products We Tried:
Southgate Beef Stew, Campbell’s Steak and Potato
Dinty Moore is the worst. It’s mostly potatoes now. I tested this by emptying a can into a bowl and picking out the potatoes. Potatoes made up more than half the can, by volume AND by weight. This is not the product we knew and loved. It stinks now.
Campbell’s doesn’t make beef stew and Progresso doesn’t either. Those are both soups. Beef stew has a thick gravy like texture where as the the progresso has a beef broth and the Campbell’s And I was just commenting last week (seriously!) Dinty Moore beef stew is AWFUL ! It’s SUPER greesy . In MŸ humble opinion the flavor is mediocre! I spent several hours on Amazon TRYING to find a beef stew alternative to order for my subscribe and save but was VERY sad to see that it qas either stick with the Dinty Moore or unless I want to take out a second mortgage. When just buying a chub of ground beef is $60 I guess I will be singing the Donty Moore song. Dint da Dinty Moore….
I was doing the same thing- trying to find a better canned beef stew – and ended up here. (Yeah, I can make it from scratch, but sometimes need something faster.) I agree – Dinty Moore is awful.
I buy DM by the case it’s a 10 across the board for this stew,and I have had the other’s as well. The only problem with this stew is the cost, I have watch the price of this stew almost double in cost, so when I see a sale I get my share. Thanks for the article Jordan
What’s the difference between stew and soup? Where do you draw the line? I asked a few coworkers of mine and we all vehemently disagreed with each other.