Turkish-Style Potato + Beef Stew
There are 1,000 ways to make a beef stew and how I make it depends on my mood, what country I’m in, and what’s on hand.
Lesvos was hit with a horrendous episode of foot & mouth disease with our sheep farms on the island. While not dangerous to humans, it devastates herds and there were many heart-breaking problems that have arisen since. For a little over a week we’ve had limited deliveries to the grocery stores as the trucks were blocked from entering the ferry port in Mytilini due to farmer protests.
The only upside to this sad situation was that I am rather adept at using what I have on hand. I had one sausage and a small handful of ground beef leftover along with some potatoes and a fresh loaf of bread. That’s good enough for me!
This is one of those meals that comes together from what you have, but still tastes like something you planned. This version leans Turkish in flavor, built around biber salça, tomatoes, and a simple broth, with soft potatoes soaking up all the good stuff - it definitely diverges from Türkiye when we add the sausage ;).
I made a quick homemade stock using vegetable scraps instead of bouillon, which gave it a cleaner, deeper flavor - it takes the same amount of time as the rest of the preparation, and is 100x better.
I served it with fresh baked bread, which you can find right here!
NOTE:
This is actually building off of a potato stew rather than a beef stew, so you’ll see that we’re more ‘flavoring’ the soup with meat rather than starting with it as the base. The ground meat shortens the cook time tremendously!
Ingredients:
1/3 lb ground beef
1 sausage (sliced or crumbled)
2–3 russet potatoes, peeled and cut into large chunks
2 carrot, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1 small onion, sliced
3–4 cloves garlic, minced
1-15oz can diced tomatoes
2+ tbsp sweet or spicy biber salça*if you don’t have this use tomato paste + chili flakes + additional salt to taste
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp ground oregano
1 tsp pul biber or chili flakes (optional)
1 tsp paprika
Olive oil
Salt and black pepper
Top with: 5% fat Greek Yogurt, dill, parsley, squeeze of lemon
Optional Add-Ins
Frozen peas
Frozen spinach
Quick Homemade Stock (Optional but Recommended)
Instead of using a bouillon cube, I threw together a quick stock while prepping:
Carrot, onion, garlic, and celery trimmings
A few peppercorns
1 bay leaf
Salt
Water to cover
Simmer for 20–30 minutes, then strain. Use this as your base liquid for the stew.
Detailed Instructions:
Start with a generous drizzle of olive oil in a pot over medium heat. Add the onion with a pinch of salt and cook until soft and lightly golden, about 8–10 minutes. Add garlic and cook another minute.
Add the sausage and ground beef. Break it up and cook until browned with some good color. Don’t rush this step.
Stir in the biber salça (both sweet and spicy) and let it cook for 2–3 minutes to deepen in flavor. Add paprika, cumin, black pepper, and chili flakes.
Pour in the diced tomatoes and let everything simmer for about 5 minutes.
Add your homemade stock (or water if needed), enough to create a brothy stew. Bring to a simmer, then add potatoes, carrots, and celery.
Simmer partially covered for 20–25 minutes, until the potatoes are tender.
If using, add peas, spinach, or mushrooms toward the end and cook another 5–10 minutes.
Taste and adjust salt. Finish with a drizzle of olive oil and a squeeze of lemon if you have it.
