How to Thicken Beef Stew Fast When It's Too Watery

Did you make a batch of beef stew and it was too thin for your liking? Learn some methods to thicken up a watery stew after it's done cooking so it will be just as you like it. I will share multiple ways to thicken it so you can do it with whatever you have on hand.

📋 What's New In This Post (1/21/26) - Added some new tips and photo.

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Jump to:

• There are Many Ways to Thicken a Stew
• 🌾 How to Thicken Beef Stew With Flour
• 🌽 Can You Use Corn Starch Instead?
• ❓ Can You Use Other Types of Starch?
• 🥔 Do Potatoes Thicken Beef Stew?
• 💧 How to Reduce Liquid in Beef Stew
• 🍅 Does Tomato Paste Thicken Stew?
• ⏲️ Why Wait to Thicken Until the End
• ➕ More Beef Stew Tips

🌾 How to Thicken Beef Stew With Flour

The most common way that stew is thickened is by using all purpose flour. There are three ways to do this:

• Once the stew meat is browned, toss it in flour before adding your liquid and other ingredients.
• When the stew is finished make a slurry - a combination of flour mixed into cold water. The recommendation is 1 part flour to 2 parts water. Mix these together in a small bowl then add into the stew. Make sure there are no lumps in your slurry before adding to the stew.
• Not often seen for stew recipes, but you could make a roux - a mixture of fat and butter that is cooked first separately before the liquid is added.
• There is a French technique called a "beurre manie". You don't cook the flour and butter you just take softened butter and mash it with flour to form a thick paste. Then mix that into the stew. Since you aren't cooking the flour first, you may end up with more of a flour taste in your stew. Some are ok with that and others despise it.

🌽 Can You Use Corn Starch Instead?

Don't want to thicken with flour? There are several other ways you can thicken a beef stew. Let's look at some different ones starting with corn starch.

The most important thing to know about using corn starch is that it has more thickening power than flour as it doesn't contain gluten that reduces flour's thickening ability.

Due note, if you are trying to completely avoid gluten, you need to make sure your corn starch is actually gluten free. It's possible for cross contamination to happen if it was processed in the same place as flour is. Anthony's Organic Corn Starch is batch tested and verified gluten free.

👍 Pro - You need half the amount of corn starch to thicken than flour.

👎 Con - The thing to know with corn starch is that it takes a higher temperature to thicken than flour does.

It really comes down to personal preference whether to choose flour or corn starch.

❓ Can You Use Other Types of Starch?

Two other starches you can use instead are potato and tapioca starch (also labeled as tapioca flour).

If you want to use potato starch instead of flour or corn starch you can. Note your stew will take on a glossier appearance. And the starch is better used at low temperatures and won't hold up to heat well. So you need to use it once your stew has thickened, kill the heat. Boiling it can cause the starch to lose it's thickening ability.

Same thing with tapioca starch, which is also a root. These starches I think do better for baking than for a stew but that doesn't mean you can't use them. If you are avoiding wheat flour these are good options.

Use both of these starches for a slurry in the same amount you would for flour. 1 tablespoon of starch to 2 tablespoons of water.

I haven't experimented enough with both of them side by side to tell you which is better or how potato is different from tapioca. Depending on where you shop, sometimes you can find tapioca starch for cheaper. And sometimes it's the reverse.

🥔 Do Potatoes Thicken Beef Stew?

Just having potatoes in your stew won't thicken it enough. But there are other ways you can use potatoes to thicken the stew. When the stew is done cooking you can remove some of the potatoes and the liquid from the stew. Then puree that in a food processor, blender, or an immersion/stick blender. Whenever I make bean soup I puree some of the beans with the cooking liquid to add body to the soup.

I think it's easiest to put the potatoes and some liquid in a bowl and use a stick blender. You can include any other vegetables in your stew as well. Once you puree it you can mix it back into your stew and it will be thicker. If it still isn't thick enough you can do some more.

💡 Tip - Cook your stew with extra potatoes or other vegetables knowing you will "sacrifice" some of them to thicken your stew.

Another way to use potatoes thicken beef stew is to use instant mashed potato flakes. You sprinkle some flakes over the hot stew and then mix together. Only a little at a time until you get the right texture. I found that this worked really well and it didn't throw off the flavor of the stew at all because I didn't need to use a lot of it.

👍 Pro - Fast. Super cheap and easy to use. A little will thicken your stew quickly.

👎 Con - You need to look carefully at the ingredients in the potato flakes, they often aren't the cleanest ingredient list.

💧 How to Reduce Liquid in Beef Stew

This might be the simplest method, but also the longest. You cook the stew longer without any lid covering it so some of the water can evaporate. This will work, but there are some cons.

• This requires patience and at this point after cooking your stew for a while you are hungry and want to eat.
• While it may not hurt the meat, as it takes a long time to cook anyway, could turn your vegetables to complete mush or water log your potatoes.

While you can certainly do this, I think the other methods I have already mentioned are better.

💡 Bonus Tip - The cooking liquid I most often use for beef stew is beef broth. You also could use beef stock or mushroom broth. I also have been known to just use water, but I heavily season that water with spices and sun dried tomato powder.

🍅 Does Tomato Paste Thicken Stew?

The last option I want to mention is tomato paste. A can of tomato paste is cheap, $1 or less. Let me share with you some pros and cons to using it to thicken your stew.

👍 Pro - This is probably the easiest to use and the one that will add the most flavor. You could add it at the start but I think there are advantages to waiting until the end. Then just add a little bit at a time until the stew is your desired consistency.

👎 Con - The downside is that if you need to add a lot, the tomato flavor will dominate your soup. It will taste more like tomato soup with beef. If you like that then it's not a bad thing.

⏲️ Why Wait to Thicken Until the End

No matter what I am using I always wait until the stew is done to thicken it. You don't want to do this early on because then you could find yourself short on cooking liquid. Plus you want to see if your stew is going to need thickening in the first place.

I believe that your goal for a stew is to have the right amount of liquid at the start that your stew will have the perfect amount in the end. But that goal is hard to attain. You have variables like the weather, how much water your veggies absorb, etc. Never feel bad if you need to thicken your stew.

➕ More Beef Stew Tips

If you make beef stew often, here's more helpful information to guide you.

• What Vegetables Go Well in Beef Stew - Learn what other vegetables besides carrots and potatoes you can add to a beef stew.
• How to Freeze Beef Stew - Get some tips on how best to freeze your leftover beef stew.
• Best Bread for Beef Stew - Looking for the perfect bread to pair with your beef stew? Here are some great options.