This comfort food-inspired Instant Pot Swiss steak dish uses a bottom round and a few basic ingredients. It’s time for something hearty when the temps start to fall and the leaves begin to fall. Any tough, lean piece of beef will do; I used a bottom round. To soak up all of that delicious sauce, serve over noodles or rice.
| Prep Time: | 40 mins |
| Cook Time: | 10 hrs |
| Total Time: | 10 hrs 40 mins |
| Servings: | 8 |
| Yield: | 8 to 10 servings |
Ingredients
- 3 onions, quartered
- 4 tablespoons vegetable oil
- 4 pounds chuck roast, cut into large chunks
- 1 cup dry kidney beans
- 1 cup dried pinto beans
- 1 cup pearl barley
- 5 large potatoes, peeled and cut into thirds
- boiling water to cover
- 2 (1 ounce) packages dry onion and mushroom soup mix
- 2 tablespoons garlic powder
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- In a large oven safe pot or roasting pan, saute onions in oil over medium heat.
- Add meat, and brown well on all sides.
- Mix in beans; stir continuously until the beans start to shrivel. Stir in the barley. Add potatoes, and add just enough boiling water to cover the meat and potatoes. Mix in dry soup mix and garlic. Season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer partially covered for 20 minutes on stove top.
- Preheat oven to 200 degrees F (95 degrees C).
- Cover pot tightly, and place in preheated oven. Allow to cook overnight for at least 10 to 15 hours. Check periodically to make sure you have enough liquid to cover; add small amounts of water if needed. Do not stir; stirring will break up the chunks of potatoes.
- Many supermarkets carry Kosher-for-Passover onion soup mixes.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 1067 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 98 g |
| Cholesterol | 161 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 17 g |
| Protein | 58 g |
| Saturated Fat | 18 g |
| Sodium | 616 mg |
| Sugars | 5 g |
| Fat | 49 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
Authentic cholent !? What makes cholent cholent is the very fact that it’s never authentic! In fact, in the Yiddish language cholent is used to describe any type of mashup. You might say to someone – “Quit putting pineapple on your pizza, your making a cholent out of your pizza!”. In some communities the recipe for cholent changes by season, by week, by day and even by hour. You might have a pareve cholent for lunch and a meaty one for dinner. Good recipe though, just add a pinch of heat and Bam!
I cooked it in our slow cooker for 8 hours. I cut the recipe in half. I only cooked the onion before putting things in slow cooker. I used 3 cups of beef broth not water. We enjoyed it. It was perfect for a winter night. I will make it again.
Very hearty recipe. Very tasty. It wasn’t so much of a stew as I’d expected.
I made this for a family dinner and everyone loved it. I only cooked the stew for about 6 hours and everything was very tender. #allrecipesallstarscanada
Super Delicious !!!!!
Made it last night in a crock pot. Came out perfect. And just the way I like it. At first taste of the broth last night I thought the onion soup mix and 3 onions would make it too sweet. Everything intermingled perfectly by this afternoon, I had three bowls already & the family loved it. Next time I will make sure to have a few marrow bones which kick it up a few notches.
The cholent recipe I grew up with is almost exactly the same. I will forever adore it. There are few things as comforting as waking up on Shabbos morning to the smell of that wonderful cholent permeating the air of my entire house. Bagels and lox are always good, but the cholent is where it’s at! If the front of my white dress shirt isn’t blessed by cholent stains by Saturday evening, something’s wrong. In my house we prefer a 7 bean mix that has the pinto and kidney beans as well as different colored lentils. Also we add a few yams.
This was really good. I did everything as written except I added some minced garlic with the onions. I prepared everything the night before, but I do not like leaving the oven on while everyone is sleeping so I just stuck it in the fridge and woke up and started it at 7am and cooked it until 6pm. Very tasty! Thanks.
I have a real problem using soup mixes since they are all full of MSG. However I do prefer to use a capful of kitchen bouquet for smoky deep flavor. Otherwise a very good recipe!
This was authentic and very good. I made a lot and froze more than half which was evwen better when I reheated it. I also poured some Marsala in on the third day. And finished it up with some sherry poured in. Really good anyway you have it. It is a lot like my grandmothers except she put lima beans in and we werer gratefull that there were no lima beans.
No question a superb recipe. I actually thought it was even better substituting Flanken for the chuck roast. Also if you need a VEGETARIAN OPTION, I substituted Portabella Mushrooms for the meat and sauteed them with the onions. (Let me know if you agree on these two items.)
The taste was AWESOME! I added an extra bit of barley which was a mistake because it clumped :(. Also, I once saw a lady presenting her Cholent which was placed in a large turkey aluminium roster and had sort of swirved all her ingredients in a circle manner, ie. beans in perfect order, meat followed and eggs + barley in their places.
We thought it was strange not to have to soak the dry beans overnight but it just goes to show that Mom knows best! I added the dry beans after the meat is browned and made sure to mix it up a bit – sure enough, the beans started to shrivel and soften. I’ve never used pearled barley either but it is very nice and does not need to be substituted. Also, during the preparation, it seemed like there were not enough beans but it really is a nice proportion in the end. Have faith. I did add some baby carrots which worked very well too. We and our shabbat lunch guests loved it. I will certainly make this many more times!
I made this for Shabbat last week- it was very easy and delicious!
I thought this recipe a bit bland, so I improved it thus: I omitted the mushroom soup mix but added worchestershire sauce for depth of flavour and added more onions. Comments from my Israeli father-in-law were that I should add more starch, so next time I will add more potatoes. I also used beef stewing bones as the bottom layer, and fully browned both the bones and the beef cubes before adding them to the pot.
How can something so simple be so delicious? Next time I would add carrots though.
One of the best cholents I’ve made. I added seasoning salt – it needed that little kick of flavor. I also used beer with the water. Cooked over night in a crock pot and was a hit for Shabbos lunch.
This is a good BASE cholent recipe, but this is what I do for mine: Add a kielbasa, fresh garlic, Mrs. Dash, two carrots and paprika. Use a crock pot to slow cook it for 12 hours, and it will come out very tasty for your Shabbos lunch meal.
I made this in a crockpot rather than a pot in the oven and assumed that therefore I would need to use a lot more water than the recipe suggested. Unfortunately, the water didn’t evaporate as I had thought it would (when I make vegetable soup in the crockpot, the water always evaporates) so it turned out really soupy. I managed to salvage it by scooping out the thick parts at the bottom and siphoning off the liquid. It’s probably a fine recipe when followed exactly, but unfortunately we don’t like to keep the oven on, even at a low temperature, over Shabbat. It just makes the house, especially the kitchen, really hot.
This recipe is the BEST!!!! I have been looking for Cholent recipe like this for a while. I kept it on 200 for 24 hours and believe me if you try it you won’t regret it. The pot was finished within a few hours after it was turned off. After all of that tike I spent keeping it in the oven, but it was worth it. It makes a very big difference. I didnt use onion soup mix because it contains monosodium glutamate, instead some onion powder, or garlic powder in addition to fresh crushed garlic works really well. Thank you very much for posting this recipe!!!
This is the best cholent I’ve ever had. The taste is fantastic. Thank you.