Fancy making a nice slow cooker beef casserole? Don’t want to put too much effort in? I’ve got you covered! This slow cooker beef casserole takes just 5 minutes to get ready and you can even cook dumplings in the pot. You can make this for under £5, serving 3-4 hungry people. Obviously this depends on the appetite and the quality of the ingredients that you buy. If your budget is small then you do what you can. Anyway, here we go. My slow cooker beef casserole – the super lazy version!

Here is a look at the slow cooker beef casserole after the flour is added but before the dumplings.

Ingredients for slow cooker beef casserole

3 medium onions

5 medium carrots

2 stalks of celery

450g casserole beef (you can use a cheaper cut as it will cook for hours)

500ml beef stock – I used a stock cube this time as I had no homemade stock.

30g plain flour

Garlic cloves (I used 3)

Salt & pepper

3 Tablespoons of fresh thyme or 2 tablespoons of dried thyme

Splash of Worcestershire sauce

Splash of brown sauce

That is it! Now you can add more vegetables as you like. Also, you can add a splash of wine, a bay leaf and balsamic vinegar if you want to make it extra special. I didn’t and it was lovely still!

Extra for slow cooker beef casserole – dumplings

100g plain flour

50g suet

Enough water until you get a wet, slightly sticky dough – I usually find a couple of tablespoons are enough

Method for slow cooker beef casserole

Throw everything in the slow cooker. Apart from the flour.

This is it once it is all mixed together and the cooking begins. I always start off on high for 1 hour. Then I turn down to low for 5-6 hours. You can cook this on high in 4 hours. You can also leave it 8 hours on low. It will not ruin it.

One hour before the end stir through the flour.

As you can see once the flour is added it thickens and goes all lovely and glossy.

Also, add the dumplings now if you’re making them. I make around 8-10 dumplings from the ingredients I have mentioned above. This is ideal if you’re feeding a few people. In our home there is usually 3 of us eating and we have seconds – yum! Add more veg to feed more people without spending much more money. See below for a look at the finished slow cooker beef casserole with dumplings.

Interested in using your slow cooker more? I’ve got tons of slow cooker recipes that I love to use. Here are some of my favourites: