Beef stroganoff is easy enough to make for a weekday dinner yet fancy enough to serve to company. Making it in an electric pressure cooker lets you use less expensive stew meat, as the pressure cooker quickly tenderizes it.

Runaway inflation, tariffs, and escalating fuel prices will continue to make everything more expensive for the average citizen in the near future. Beef had gotten especially expensive. However, sometimes you just want some beef, and by making the beef an ingredient of a dish rather than the whole dish, you stretch it. I’m going to stretch things further by using only 1 pound of stew meat instead of the 2 pounds that the recipe calls for. It will still be delicious.

Let’s get into it! This recipe is from the website “The Salty Marshmallow”

Here are the ingredients, nothing too fancy.

I’m only going to use 1 pound of stew meat. I got this meat on sale and vacuum-sealed it last year. Vacuum sealing frozen meats can keep them fresh for a very long time.

I thawed the stew meat and patted it dry with paper towels. This will reduce spattering when I sear the meat. I seasoned the meat. In this case, I used a premade seasoning mix, but you can also season with just salt and pepper, as the recipe calls for.

I placed my Instant Pot clone on sauté and heated up some cooking oil. I added the meat and browned it. Since I was only using 1 pound, I browned it in one batch. If I had used 2 pounds, I would have browned the meat in two batches. After browning, I removed the meat and wiped out any excessive grease in the pot with a paper towel.

I added the butter and allowed it to melt. The pot is still on the sauté setting.

I added the chopped onion and cooked it until it softened and became more translucent.

Now, go add the sliced mushrooms and jarlic. I’m back to using jarlic for the garlic.

I’m going to cook the mushrooms until they soften.

Now the flour. I’ll mix the flour in and cook it for a minute or two.

In goes the beef broth. I’m using my usual, Better Than Bouillon.

Now the mustard and Worcestershire sauce.

I brought the mixture to a boil.

Back in goes the meat.

I canceled sauté, closed and sealed the lid on my Instant Pot clone, and set the machine to high pressure for 9 minutes. If you want even more tender meat, go for 12 minutes.

I did a quick pressure release after my time was up. I added the egg noodles. You don’t want to mix them in; you just want to push them down into the broth. I only had 5 ounces of egg noodles, so I used that. Remember, this is home cooking; you can be flexible as long as you don’t go too far afield.

I canceled Keep Warm, closed the lid, and sealed the cooker. I set the cook time to 2 minutes at high pressure (it will also take a few minutes to return to pressure). When the time was up, I released the pressure immediately. Always follow your machine’s safety instructions.

In a separate bowl, I placed my sour cream and a few tablespoons of the hot broth from the pressure cooker and mixed the two together. This will temper the sour cream and prevent it from curdling. The mixture was stirred into the pot. I then tasted it and adjusted the seasoning. I felt that the salt level was good, but I did add some black pepper, around 1/3 of a teaspoon. If you want a thicker sauce you can place your cooker back on sauté and concentrate the sauce more. You could also add a little more flour (mixed with cold water) to thicken it as you would a gravy (the pot needs to be on sauté for this too as you need to cook the flour).

Here it is, served up; it was both hearty and yummy. I’m serving it with some of my homemade 50% whole wheat bread.

Peace

Mike