Keto Beef Bourguignon
Beef in Red Wine
Keto Beef Bourguignon or Beouf Bourguignon as it’s said in French, is a beef cooked in red wine. It’s a simple, homely and a one pot dish. It’s French cooking at it’s finest. I’ve cooked few beef dishes on the show previously. When I say beef, I do mean water buffalo (don’t ask it’s a long story). I’ve made a delicious beef massaman curry, a delicious Keto beef Stroganoff and even an Asian style beef salad. I’ve had my eye on this dish for a while but I’ve never really had wine lying around in the house and just the thought of buying a bottle to cook with, kept me away from it. However after cooking this up, I might stock on up wine more regularly just for cooking. I hope you feel the same way.
All the information I wanted to share
As I mentioned in the video, there was a lot of information I wanted to share and that’s because I made a fair amount of changes to the original recipe. There are also a number of variations in the original recipe itself. I wanted to mention all these points because you can choose to incorporate them in the way you make your beef bourguignon. I literally went through 20 different recipes and videos to finalize this one.
Bacon – This can be completely omitted if you don’t eat pork. You can use any kind of bacon that is available to you, I went for the smoked cubes because I much prefer getting nice chunky bacon bits. You can use back bacon or streaky bacon. I also chose to cook the bacon along with the stew, however many people like to sprinkle it just before serving on individual portions. That gives you a more crunch texture from the bacon. If you stew it with the meat, it’s not going to stay crispy.
Wine – Now I’m expecting a lot of people asking me if they can make this without wine. I know, it’s like some Indian ‘pure vegetarians’ asking me how to make an omelet without eggs. However for those not living in Europe/UK and certain countries, wine is not something a lot of people keep at home. There is also this whole cultural thing of not cooking with alcohol or having it in your house if you live with your parents because it’s a ‘bad habit’. Before I get into a rant or long ramble about this, you can manage without the wine but it’s not going to taste the same. It will just be a beef stew then.
If you do skip the wine you can just add more stock and also maybe throw in some red wine vinegar if you have for a bit of acidity, maybe a tablespoon. You can also add some tomato puree. If you are worried about the carbs from the wine, a cup of red wine has on average 4 carbs. This dish makes 4-5 servings, you should be ok.
Tomato/Tomato Paste – I’m sure you are thinking, you didn’t use any. Exactly, I did however seem to find a few recipes that did call for tomato or tomato paste. I decided to keep out the extra carbs from it because I was already using wine. As mentioned above this will work as a replacement for wine if you want to make it without it.
Herbs/Bouquet Garni – This refers to just a bunch of herbs tied together to impart flavour. I used what I had at home and honestly you can mix it up with you like. I do also suspect if you actually chop the herbs like rosemary, parsley and thyme and put it in, the flavour of the herbs will be more pronounced. When it’s just tied and stewed in with everything it’s a lot more ‘mild’.
That’s all I can think off for now, if anything else comes to mind, I’ll add it here at some point. If you have any ideas, tips or tricks about this dish, leave me a comment.
Nutrition Info (Per serving)
- Calories: 613
- Net Carbs: 5g
- Carbs: 6g
- Fat: 39g
- Protein: 49g
- Fiber: 1g
This recipe makes 5 servings. Get this recipe on myfitnesspal.
Keto Beef Bourguignon
Ingredients
- 1 Kg Beef (Chuck or any slow cooking cut) I used brisket
- 200 grams Smoked Bacon Cubes
- 400 grams White Mushrooms
- 150 grams Onion
- 10 grams garlic
- 1 cup Red Wine
- 1 Beef Stock Pot You can use a cube or about 300 ml of beef stock instead Try this one
- 300 ml Water
- 1 Bouquet garni Parsley, Thyme, Rosemary and Bay Leaves
- 1/4 Tsp Cayenne Pepper Try this one
- Salt & Pepper to taste
- 1/4 Tsp Xanathan Gum Optional Try this one
- 1 Tbsp Chopped Chives
Instructions
- Start by frying the bacon in your dutch oven. Start from a cold pan and let it slowly render out it's fat. Once it's fully cooked remove from the dutch over with a slotted spoon
- Cut your beef into bite size pieces or if you prefer big chunks you can do that as well. Season with salt and pepper and them sear in the dutch oven in the residual bacon fat. Remember to cook your beef in batches and not to crowd the pan. You want to get some colour on the pieces of meat and not have them stew in the pan. Once you get a good sear on them, set aside.
- In the same pan add in the onions and butter and fry till the onions start to soften. For a richer flavour you can cook the onions till they start browning.
- Then add in the mushrooms and lightly season with salt and the cayenne pepper and cook.
- Add in the garlic and cook till the mushrooms release their water and that starts drying up.
- At this point add in the red wine, the bouquet garni and beef stock pot and give everything a good stir.
- Once it's all well mixed you want to add the beef back in along with all the resting juices and then also add in the bacon. You can alternatively keep the bacon aside and just sprinkle it on individual servings at the end.
- Add in the water till the beef is completely covered and bring the mixture up to the boil. Once it's boiling, cover with the lid, reduce the heat to low and cook for 90 minutes. You can alternatively cook it for 3hours at 180C in an oven.
- Every 30 minutes open the lid, give everything a good stir and let it keep cooking.
- Once the meat is fork tender remove the bouquet garni and garnish with chives. Serve with a dollop of sour cream on the top.
Hey Sahil this looks awesome! I think if I cook this I will use just wine and beef stock and not dilute it with the water. Xanathan gum is a fantastic thickener, it works best for gravy’s when you add after you get a boil going. it goes along way so be careful you can always add a little more.
Yes true that, I added water because I used the beef stock pot which is concentrated jelly otherwise I would have just poured in stock not water.
I think this recipe is great although you might want to mention in the recipe that if your not using beef concentrate that you should add more beef stock and not water. I added 300ml beef stock, 1 cup red wine and filled with water to cover. I hope it won’t be too watered down 🙁
I will do that and also you can always reduce the sauce down to get the flavour you want 🙂
In the written ingredients it doesn’t say how much baco you used. In fact in the written recipe it doesn’t even list bacon as an ingredient but,you show it.
I will just check and fix that. It’s 200 grams of bacon. raw uncooked bacon.
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OMG!! So much flavour is packed into this meal. My second favourite dish after your Beef Ragu.
My whole family loves it, and i cook double so we get left overs.
Highly recommend ????
This looks amazing! Thank you. I’ll cook it tomorrow. But can you please tell me when I should add the xanathan gum (as I’ll be wanting to use it)?
Just before you shut the lid to slow cook it, add the gum, stir it in and then let the beef cook.
Thanks for getting back to me so quickly!
Hi Sahil. I made this the other day. The meat was very tender. I loved it. It was even better the next night. Thanks for your recipes. i love them.
Yeah these always taste better after a day or 2
Red wine is not only keto-friendly; it is also the most metal of all alcoholic drinks. Yeah, mead is pretty metal too, with the viking connotation and the fact that the main ingredient is stolen from highly-cooperative social insects who are just trying to keep their family fed through the winter.
But to make good wine—to get the vines to put their energy into the fruit instead of into the leaf canopy—you have to torture and starve them within an inch of their life. And then you crush their reproductive organs and collect the juices. How metal is that?
Good recipe, by the way. Thank you. Before I went keto I used to serve this dish over egg noodles. I think I’ll try it with riced cauliflower this time. And I know xanthan gum is the default keto thickener, but classic non-keto recipes call for gelatin (about 30g for a recipe this size) and that’s also keto-friendly (pure protein, no carbs).
How Much bacon, it does not show in the ingredients list?
I just fixed it Mike, thanks for pointing that out.
Sahil, we made this a couple of weeks back exactly to your recipe (with the exception of using cornstarch to thicken as we didn’t have xantham on hand). Dude. It was soooooooo delicious. Delicious enough, in fact, that we are making it for Canadian Thanksgiving Dinner this year because we’ve been craving it ever since we first made it. Horns up! Keep the recipe’s coming!
So glad to hear that, thank you.
What is the best kind of red wine to use?
A nice dry red wine will do.
Hi, can this all be done using an Instant pot with the sauté & slow cook option? Or it has to be stove top?
Thanks 🙂
Oh you can absolutely do this in an instant pot it will be great. Doesn’t have to be stove top.
Hi Sahil,
This recipe is awesome and am currently cooking in however I can’t seem to find how many grams make a serving. Normaly would just eye ball a serving but am trying to lose weight and learn portion sizes.
Mandy
I would just weigh the dish at the end and do maths. So if it weights 800 grams and it makes 8 servings then 1 serving is 100grams of the stew.
Okay, so I don’t much like slow cooked beef. I make a lot of stews, beef stroganoff etc (my family are Irish/Scottish so it’s a regular in our house). I tend to always make myself something different on those evenings. I made this on Wednesday night for Thursday nights dinner. I had been given a large stewing steak and didn’t want it to go to waste (I hate wasting food – I also never post reviews/comments)! WOW!!! I made this recipe and it is the best beef I have ever tasted! I made enough for 3 people but I’m going to make a HUGE pot of this over the weekend and get it into the freezer as my go to meal for the rest of Winter! My other half was given potatoes and vegetables with his but as I’m doing KETO, I had mine with cauliflower rice and it was absolutely divine! I didn’t have any Xanathan Gum so I just slow cooked until the gravy had reduced enough. I also didn’t have any Bouquet Garni so I just put in a couple of Bay Leaves. The flavours were outrageous and I haven’t enjoyed a meal that much in a very long time (and I cook every night)! I have a lot of friends doing KETO and I’ll certainly be sending them to your website. I can’t WAIT to try more of your recipes!
I am so glad to hear that! made my day! <3
I have been making coconut flour slurry and its very healthy and you can add as much as you want
I also got some Espelette from a friend winemaker and also used ground coriander salt and pepper on beef tender loin trimming from a beef Wellington we do for the holiday. I made this for my wife on Oscar night 2020 and got rave reviews from her. Served with Mashed Keto cauliflower. A 2015 dry Oregon Pinot was all we have up here And it was perfect
Recipe looks really good! May I know what’s the size of the dutch oven you used, please? I may want to get one for myself before I try this recipe.
Hey it’s the Le Creuset #24 4.5 Quarts 4.2 Liters
Hi Sahil, Thanks for your recipe. How do I use the xanathan gum?
This is a keto version of a favorite recipe for our crockpot. So I have it in the crockpot now. I did some changes. We don’t eat bacon, and so I used oil to saute the patted dry beef chunks. Then I sauteed the onions and garlic to help flavor them with beef flavor. I added the wine to the pan to deglaze it and get every last drop of beef flavor. Oh, yes, I added 1/3 cup of tomato paste.
I used to use flour on the beef chunks, but that isn’t necessary if you pat it dry.
I would love to know how to thicken the gravy with the xanathan gum. Maybe heat some of it and then add xanathan gum to that, then to the crockpot? Thank you so much.
I saw you put in a stick of butter but it is not in the ingredients anywhere
Oh will fix that!
actually where did you see that? I watched the video again and didn’t see it.