The Ideal Time To Add Potatoes To Your Stew So They Don't Get Mushy

There are few things quite as soul-warming and simple as homemade stew on a chilly day. While a good old-fashioned beef stew or sweet potato curry can easily come together when left to cook in a big pot over the stove, a common mistake with stew is adding in the potatoes too early. Though a recipe may need ample time to simmer and deepen in flavor, potatoes only need to be cooked for a fraction of the stew's total cooking time. The question is, why?

As a stew simmers, potatoes absorb the flavorful liquid of the broth, which helps them to soften and tenderize. However, the starchy root vegetable will eventually begin to break down and dissolve into a mushy mess if it's added too early in any number of hearty stew recipes. To prevent this from happening — and ensure that your potatoes remain al dente — they only need about 20 to 30 minutes of cooking time.

The type of potato you use in a stew will also affect texture and cooking time. While waxy potatoes (like fingerlings) keep their shape well in recipes like potato salad, starchy potatoes (like russets) tend to dissolve more easily in stew. Though some home cooks say to use whatever potatoes you have on hand, spuds with the right balance of starchiness and waxiness, such as the Yukon Gold, are typically one of the best potatoes to add into stew.

Whichever spuds you choose, remember that they should only be added once the stew is almost ready — think of it as the final cooking step. When making classic beef stew, for instance, the potatoes don't enter the scene until after sautéing the onions, searing the beef, and letting these ingredients simmer in broth thickened with a bit of flour or cornstarch. If preparing stew in a crockpot is your thing, the same methodology applies. For a recipe that simmers for 8 to 10 hours, simply chop the potatoes into 1-inch cubes — this ensures they'll cook all the way through — and add them into the pot about 2 hours before the stew is done cooking. This trick will give spuds a silky texture instead of turning to mush, leading to an overall better tasting result.