Beef stew meets beef hotpot in this delicious beef hotpot in the slow cooker recipe. Easy to prep, tastes amazing and you will want to lick the bowl when you are done.
If you love hotpots and stew, then let me introduce you to the best of both worlds. Loaded with lean beef and veggies and topped with sliced potatoes, this is a comfort food winner.
Table of Contents
Beef Hotpot
Welcome back to our hotpot series in the slow cooker. Or if you are a first time visitor to Recipe This and looking for hotpot inspiration, do check out our Lancashire hotpot, minced beef hotpot or most recently our sausage hotpot.
But you are here for a yummy beef hotpot, and this was voted by the Milner house as being the tastiest out of the different hotpots we cooked last week.
Though I am sure the meat had something to do with it. After all, I would consider lean diced beef to be more superior to sausages or to minced beef.
Not only is this beef hotpot perfect for an easy weeknight dinner or a Sunday dinner alternative, what I really love it for, is making from Sunday dinner leftovers.
You could swap the meat we are using for your leftover roast beef or even leftover roast lamb.
And if you have not made a beef hotpot before and have always wanted to, then sit down and relax, have a read and then get your slow cooker out for comfort food heaven.
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What’s The Difference Between Stew & Hotpot?
I mentioned above that this slow cooker beef hotpot is a mix between hotpot and stew. So, I am sure you want to know the difference.
Well, there is only one simple difference.
A beef hotpot is served with crispy sliced potatoes over it and stew is always served with delicious dumplings.
This beef hotpot filling is the same as what you could use to make a beef stew in the slow cooker.
You could then swap the air fryer sliced potatoes for our air fryer dumplings without suet.
Or because the filling is often the same, you can use your stew leftovers to make a hotpot.
Why Is My Hotpot Watery?
The reason why your hotpot is watery is because you have added too much liquid and as it has cooked, because the ingredients hold water, you have a water bath happening in your slow cooker.
The solution is to grab a sieve, drain the liquid from the slow cooker and then add a little liquid back in along with tomato puree.
Tomato puree is a natural thicker and also adds extra flavour to your beef hotpot.
Can You Put Raw Beef In Slow Cooker?
Yes, you can, and I have put raw beef in the slow cooker many, many times. But when you do put raw beef in the slow cooker, it can dilute the flavour and you don’t have a hotpot that is as flavoursome.
Is It OK To Cook Beef On High In Slow Cooker?
Yes, it is perfectly OK to cook beef on high in the slow cooker. Maybe this is a good time to confess that I have nearly always cooked my beef in the slow cooker on high and rarely use the low setting.
This is because I work from home and its easy for me to put the slow cooker on at lunch time and then it is ready for dinner time to feed everyone.
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Hotpot Recipe Ingredients
Beef – The best beef cut for hotpot is any lean diced beef. This can be shin, braising, rump, or another favourite of yours. By opting for the lean cut, it stops your beef hotpot recipe from becoming overly fatty. As there is nothing worse than a build up of fat in the slow cooker.
Veggies – After the beef, comes the veggies that you want to add to your hotpot recipe. I like a feel similar to a classic beef stew and love the ingredients that go into air fryer Cornish pasties so I opt for carrots and swede. You can also add chunks of potatoes but with potatoes being the hero on top of the beef, I don’t want double the potatoes.
Potatoes – For the beef hotpot with sliced potatoes you will need about 4 medium sized potatoes. You can then air fry them and then place them on top of the slow cooker hotpot.
Extras – I also recommend adding tomato puree, garlic, tinned tomatoes and some salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary, and parsley. All of these add to the flavour of your slow cooker beef hotpot recipe.
Then for the kitchen gadgets that we have used in this beef hotpot recipe it has just been our Crockpot Slow Cooker. We have this one and its wonderful for many types of hotpots and we have used it many times for making beef incredibly tender.
Plus, we recommend you head over to our slow cooker recipes category as we have more than 100 tried and tested slow cooker recipes and have been using slow cookers for 18 years.
How To Make Beef Hotpot?
- Sauté. Dice and peel your onion and sauté with extra virgin olive oil in the slow cooker. Add in the lean diced beef and brown on all sides.
- Prep. Peel and dice your carrots and swede.
- Dump. Remove the slow cooker from the heat and load everything into the slow cooker apart from the sliced potatoes and mix well.
- Cook. Slow cooker and cook on high for 4 hours or low for 7 hours.
- Potatoes. After 3.5 hours, thinly slice your potatoes (skin on or off its your choice) and follow our air fryer sliced potatoes recipe. Then stir the beef and veggies and place the potatoes over them. Cook for an extra 30 minutes before serving.
- Serve. Load into dishes and tuck in.
And I am sure you can see why this beef hotpot slow cooker recipe is a true favourite of mine.
How Long Does It Take To Cook Beef In The Slow Cooker On High?
The slow cooker beef cook time depends on how big the chunks of beef is, and how tough the beef is, that you are using.
For example, sirloin chunks won’t need as long to get tender in the slow cooker.
For our slow cooker simple beef hotpot, you just need 4 hours on high and then your beef will be fork tender and you will struggle not to eat the beef from the slow cooker.
Beef Hotpot Recipe Tips & Tricks
- I recommend starting with cooking the onion. It will then add some yummy flavour to your slow cooker and then perfect for adding your beef to straight after.
- Cook the sliced potatoes first in the air fryer. Only a tiny bit of extra virgin olive oil is required and then you don’t need to add butter or place your hotpot in the oven.
- Tomato puree (also known as tomato paste) as well as tinned tomatoes, give a wonderful rich flavour to your hotpot.
- The taste of the beef hotpot is very similar to a beef stew. Instead of this recipe you could take your mums best beef stew and then cover with sliced potatoes.
Slow Cooker Trick – Always buy a slow cooker like this Crockpot one that we own. It can go on the stovetop to brown meat and go in the oven.
Can you make ahead your hotpot recipe? Yes, you can. I often do this to save on time. You can also reheat your hotpot in the slow cooker by cooking it on low for two hours or on high for an hour.
Listen To Slow Cooker Beef Hotpot
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What To Serve With Hotpot?
A classic British hotpot served down the pub will usually come with a portion of chips and often some peas.
Though I prefer my hotpot with some pull apart bread that I can dunk into the beef juices.
Here are a few serving suggestions for your hotpot or you can have it on its own:
- Air Fryer Carrots
- Air Fryer Frozen French Fries
- Air Fryer Pull Apart Bread
- Bread Maker Beer Bread
- Instant Pot No Drain Mashed Potatoes
Your beef hotpot slow cooker recipe is below, note you can print it out with or without photos, adjust servings, or click between metric and imperial depending on where you are in the world.
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Beef Hotpot In Slow Cooker
Ingredients
- 500 g Air Fryer Sliced Potatoes
- 1 Medium White Onion
- 400 g Lean Diced Beef
- 1 Medium Swede/Rutabaga
- 3 Medium Carrots
- 1 Tsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 1 Can Diced Tinned Tomatoes
- 1 Tbsp Tomato Puree/Paste
- 1 Tsp Garlic Puree
- 2 Tsp Rosemary
- 2 Tsp Thyme
- 2 Tsp Parsley
- Salt & Pepper
Kitchen Gadgets:
Instructions
- Dice and peel your onion and sauté in the slow cooker on the stovetop with a little extra virgin olive oil and then add the diced beef.
- Cook the beef in the slow cooker until lightly browned on all sides.
- Peel and dice the swede and carrots and load them into the slow cooker with everything else but the sliced potatoes.
- Mix well and then place the lid on the slow cooker. Cook on high for 3.5 hours or on low for 6 hours. Prep your air fryer sliced potatoes, cook, and then put to one side.
- After the 3.5 hours on high stir frozen peas into your beef stew and if not thick enough add extra tomato puree.
- Then decorate the top of your beef hotpot with your just air fried sliced potatoes.
- Cook for an extra 30 minutes with the sliced potatoes on top before serving.
Notes
Nutrition
Can’t make it now? Then save it for later!
The classic beef hotpot. Mine turned out lovely with a special ingredient i added which was cheese. I love cheese with a hotpot.
how do I do the potatoes without an air fryer?
Hi Dawn,
You can do them in a deep fat fryer if you have one of those, but if not then you can use your cooker and lay them out and cook them like that but they will take quite a long time 🙂