Beef Bourguignon Julia Child Recipe

Julia Child’s Beef Bourguignon (Bœuf Bourgignon in French) is a world wide loved classic for a reason. This is one recipe where you want to take your time cooking it, drinking a glass of wine or two while preparing it, and show it a lot of love. Every step is worth it. In our recipe, we included four different cooking methods to make your life easier: traditional oven, stove top, slow cooker and instant pot or pressure cooker methods. Whichever one you choose, you will not be disappointed!

Beef Bourguignon

Adapting this Beef Bourguignon from Julia’s best seller, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, this dish raises a simple beef stew to an art form and is not too difficult to make at all. You don’t need to be an experienced cook to try this in your kitchen at home. Even though it’s been remade all over the world countless times by families over the decades, it’s an extremely forgiving recipe. We cut out a few steps from Julia’s original to make it a little easier and maybe a little less intimidating. Still, I didn’t want to mess with something so perfect. Julia Child = Genius.

How do you make a beef bourguignon?

I don’t know about you but when reading the original recipe from Julia’s book, I immediately became as nervous as Amy Adams’ Julie in the movie Julie and Julia. SO MANY STEPS. So I poured myself a wine and began my mission to follow AT LEAST one recipe in my life as best as I could. The results were unbelievable. I can honestly say I have never enjoyed a stew as much as I did when it was done. Trying it again and skipping only a couple of steps to attempt to cut down on some the work and washing extra pots; adding a little more of this and that, I have to say the results were just about the same but with a little added flavour.

What did we do differently?

Julia’s first step is to simmer bacon rind and fat in water for 10 minutes, remove then proceed to fry lightly in oil. We skipped this and just went straight to frying until crisp and browned. When beef and veggies are in, Julia suggests to set the casserole in the oven for 4 minutes, then toss the meat and return to the oven for 4 minutes more. We skipped this also and opted to continue cooking over stove top. This didn’t make a difference. I added a couple extra cloves of garlic feeling we missed that particular flavour and added more herbs into the stew. Also, Julia prepares her pearl sized onions seperate from the Beef Bourguignon itself, adding them in near the end of cooking. My family completely skipped over the onions in their bowls, eating everything else and leaving them behind. So, the second time around, I added them in with all of the ingredients, saving a pot and stove top cooking time. The results were better for us. We saved the onions! Lastly, Julia asks us to wash out the casserole and return the beef and bacon to it at the end of the recipe. This I couldn’t bring myself to do, wanting to keep every single lick of flavour in that pot.

I was left craving this the next day, so we made it again and again. No regrets.

What meat is best for beef bourguignon?

We tried this with a few cuts of beef: brisket, chuck steak and stewing beef (yes, the third time I made it was in our Instant Pot/Multi Cooker). Brisket yielded our favourite result. The meat fell apart so beautifully and tasted better than the others with a juicy outcome. Having said the though, you can use whichever stewing beef you can find or have on hand.

Tips to an incredible Beef Bourguignon

You should be left with about 2 ½ cups of sauce thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.

Which red wine is best for beef bourguignon?

Julia recommends a good quality burgundy for her Beef Bourguignon recipe. We used a $20 bottle of Pinot Noir as we love cooking with that particular wine. It doesn’t need to be expensive, but try to get a good quality brand. Worried about the amount of wine? Reduce it to 2 cups and up the stock to 3 cups (for oven and stove top methods only). If you don’t want to use wine, you can leave it out all together and use all beef stock. However, I cannot guarantee the flavour. The wine makes this incredible.

What do you serve with beef bourguignon?

Definitely Mashed potatoes! You can also serve it with plain rice or noodles. There is so much flavour in this, you need a fairly plain side to go with it.