Beef Stew Crock Pot Recipe | Budget Beef Slow Cooker Curry | Slow Cooker Recipes NZ

Have you got an Indian spice merchant come grocery store near you?
The one near me sells spice from 'bulk bins', and they also have a range of tiny bags of individual spices for $1 a bag - which is much, much cheaper than those little boxes at the supermarket.  *If you don't have the spices, just replace them with 1 Tbsp curry powder. 

If you want to get the individual spices, I'll let you into a little secret.  I use this base recipe and make other dishes with it too.
Vegetarian Curry - replace beef with 1 cup or can of red kidney beans, increase quantity of vegetables, supplementing with frozen if necessary, to achieve the number of servings you require.
Chicken Curry - replace beef with chicken
Thai Chicken Curry - replace beef with skinned chicken, replace tomatoes with lite coconut cream
Curry Sausages - replace beef with sausages.

The secret of the budget conscious cook is to have a small number of ingredients that can be used in a variety of ways to create different meals.  And with your slow cooker, you can cook double the quantity you need for one meal, and freeze the other half to make putting a meal together next week easier.

Beef Stew Crock Pot Recipe | Slow Cooker Curry

Serves 4
Cook on low for 5-6 hours

250g skirt steak cut into tiny cubes
2-3 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed

1 large carrot halved lengthwise and sliced into half rounds
1 finely chopped onion
1 apple, peeled, cored and cubed
1 rib of celery chopped into a fine dice
1/2 C saltanas

400g can tomato puree
1 Tbsp brown, raw or white sugar
1 Tbsp Bisto (cornflour or flour)
1 tsp ground cumin*
1 tsp ground coriander*
1/4 tsp ground chili powder*
1/4 tsp paprika*


The way I assemble a slow cooker meat casserole is to put the meat over the bottom of the insert, leaving a 3 cm gap around the outside edge.  Fill the gap with root vegetables, fill the centre with other vegetables (including apples and saltanas) pour over MOST of the tomato puree, reserving a little in the can to mix the Bisto and spices into.  Pour spice mix over and rinse can with a little warm water or use a spatula to get most if the ingredients out.  Use a fork to 'part' the ingredients here an there so the spices soak in.
If I am home, I stir the contents half way through, to mix the meat with the vege and gravy, but this can be done at the last before serving too.

Serve with rice or mash and stretch further by serving with seasonal greens and or a salad.  Enjoy!

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Find more slow cooker recipes for Kiwis - and other cooks who use metric measurements here at... Slow Cooker Recipes NZ - and check this out - the easiest way to see all my Slow Cooker Recipes!