Why It Works
- Thickening the broth with flour, then reducing it further in the oven, results in a silky, gravy-like sauce.
- Soy sauce and fish sauce give the sauce savory depth.
With its ultra-tender chunks of beef and thick, wine-rich broth, beef Bourguignon is one of my all-time favorite dishes. Each winter, meaty braises like it are staples in my household. While they require a few hours of gentle simmering on the stove, these meals are relatively hands-off and produce enough food to feed my partner and me for a few days. Braised meat is also wonderfully versatile: You can serve it with potatoes, polenta, or whatever grain your heart desires. And if you’re thinking one step ahead, you can turn whatever stew you’re making into a pot pie.
The idea came to me a few years back when I had a big pot of beef Bourguignon simmering on the stove. My boyfriend walked in and announced that he was craving a meat pie stuffed with a hearty steak-and-ale filling—the type he grew up eating in southwest England. At first, I was annoyed. Couldn’t he see I was making a delicious French meal for him? But then I realized how easy it’d be to turn the stew into a pot pie. I dug out a sheet of puff pastry from the depths of my freezer and let it thaw. Once the stew was done, I transferred it to a cast iron skillet, laid the pastry on top, and placed it in a hot oven. When it emerged piping hot with a golden, crispy crust, we knew we were in for a treat.
Nowadays, this is something we serve when we want to impress guests on a cold winter’s night. It’s rich, meaty, and exceptionally comforting. Plus, what doesn’t taste better beneath a lid of buttery, flaky pastry?
Serious Eats / Deli Studios
Beef Chuck Makes for the Tenderest Bite
For my pot pie, I’ve taken plenty of cues from Serious Eats editorial director Daniel’s beef Bourguignon recipe. The method is very similar to that of other beef stews: You brown the meat, add aromatics, deglaze with wine and broth, then let it all simmer until the meat is tender. Like Daniel, I prefer to use a boneless chuck roll, a collagen-rich cut with plenty of fat. “Meat that has lots of collagen in it starts off tough as heck,” Daniel writes in his recipe. “But, as it cooks, it very slowly transforms into meltingly soft and moist gelatin. It’s that gelatin that makes the meat still seem moist even after the muscle fibers have inevitably dried out from long cooking.”
Serious Eats / Deli Studios
Getting the Texture of the Sauce Right
Pot pies typically have a very thick sauce that makes for neat serving and helps prevent the crust from turning soggy too quickly. Luckily, beef Bourguignon is already a thick, hearty stew. While some recipes rely on cornstarch—or even gelatin, which Daniel uses in his version—to achieve this texture, I’ve opted to stick with flour, the most traditional thickener. Once the onions and carrots are tender, I stir to coat them in flour, then deglaze with a mixture of red wine, broth, soy sauce, and fish sauce (more on the last two below). While flour is effective at adding body to broths and soups, using too much can result in a stew with a muted flavor. Just two tablespoons is all you need to thicken the sauce, as the broth will reduce slightly and thicken further as it cooks in the oven.
Three Ingredients for Extra Umami
Three key ingredients ensure this stew is super savory and packed with umami: tomato paste, soy sauce, and a small dash of fish sauce. Tomato paste is a classic addition to beef Bourguignon, contributing sweet, acidic, and savory notes. Soy sauce and fish sauce—two ingredients that are also in Daniel’s original recipe—might seem like unexpected additions, but they add even more umami, further enhancing the stew’s depth of flavor—you won’t taste them, but they do a lot of work.
Serious Eats / Deli Studios
For the Best Flavor and Texture, Add Your Mushrooms at the End
In most iterations of beef Bourguignon, sautéed mushrooms are added at the very end, just before serving. If added earlier, they absorb the broth’s flavor and lose their distinct mushroom-y taste. I follow Daniel’s lead again here, first frying some bacon lardons in a cast iron skillet (the same pan you plan to bake the pot pie in), then sautéing the mushrooms in the rendered fat, and finally adding them towards the end of cooking to preserve their fresh, woodsy flavor.
You’ll notice that half the carrots are finely diced and the other half are cut into 1/4-inch rounds. I sauté those larger carrot pieces, then add them to the stew after it’s simmered for an hour and a half to two hours. By then, the finely diced carrots added earlier will have mostly disappeared into the stew, and the addition of fresh carrots at this stage provides more variety in flavor and texture.
Serious Eats / Deli Studios
Yes, Store-Bought Puff Pastry Is Fine
To give the pie a flaky, golden lid, I transfer the stew from the Dutch oven to a skillet, then top it off with a single layer of puff pastry. While most pot pies have both a top and a bottom crust, I find this version with just the top crust far more foolproof—no need to worry about soggy bottoms. Plus, the puff pastry is so rich and buttery that one crust is more than enough. I highly recommend going the store-bought route here, as the dish is already time-consuming. My only advice is to look for a product made with real butter, which will have the best flavor. (Dufour is one brand the Serious Eats team recommends.)
If I find myself with extra time, instead of using store-bought puff pastry, I finish my pot pie off with a layer of homemade rough puff pastry. In either case, I love how the underside of the pastry absorbs some of the thick, gravy-like broth while the top bakes up crisp and flaky.
I’m not going to pretend that a beef Bourguignon pot pie is a quick or casual weeknight dinner. The recipe isn’t overly complicated, but it does take enough time and effort that I tend to save it for special occasions. Last year, I served it for Christmas dinner. It was the perfect holiday meal, all rolled into a single dish: tender cubes of meat with built-in gravy, hearty vegetables, and crispy pastry to soak up the sauce.
Serious Eats / Deli Studios
