Hungarian Beef Goulash is a soup made with slow-cooked beef stew meat, onions, and red pepper, and flavored with paprika and caraway seeds. Serve this soup over a bowl of egg noodles for a warming and filling dinner. Eastern European comfort food at its best.
It’s soup weather. Between the ramen noodle soup I shared last post and today’s Beef Goulash, my recipes are definitely getting cozy!
During my brief stay in Budapest, which I wrote more about in this post, I learned as much as I could about Hungarian cuisine. I sampled as much as I could too, despite the fact that it was hot summer weather and the best foods were hearty winter comfort foods.
The word gulyás in Hungarian actually means cowboy, or herdsman. The men who herded cattle across Central Europe centuries ago would occasionally slaughter a cow for themselves along the way and make a stew or soup with the meat, using every part of the animal. Eventually, the word goulash came to be associated with the meat dish these cowboys cooked on the trail, rather than the men themselves. So when it’s freezing cold this winter, I can pretend I’m out on a cattle drive, setting up camp, slow-cooking this beef soup to warm us up before a long cold night.
I had always thought of Hungarian Beef Goulash as being more like a beef stew, but in Hungary, people generally prepare it as a soup. Hungarian Goulash traditionally is not thickened with flour or starch and does not include sour cream, tomatoes, wine, or garlic—all modern additions. Of course, there are now many different variations of goulash, and many add carbs like pasta, potatoes, or beans. I added whole wheat egg noodles to my goulash for a comforting noodle-soup kind of feel.
Ingredients for Hungarian Beef Goulash
Here are the main ingredients. There are two pounds of stew meat, paprika, caraway seeds, a bay leaf, two sweet onions, two red bell peppers, and some whole wheat egg noodles.
What kind of paprika should I use for Hungarian Beef Goulash?
Paprika is a spice made out of ground dried peppers. I’ve seen four different varieties of paprika in Hungarian cuisine. There is sweet and hot paprika, and a smoked version of each. I used sweet smoked paprika in this recipe. If you like spicy food, you may want to substitute 1 tablespoon of the paprika with smoked hot paprika. You don’t have to use smoked paprika if it’s not available at your supermarket. The most important thing is to use fresh paprika. Don’t use something that’s been sitting in the back of your cabinet for so long you can’t remember when you bought it. Paprika loses a lot of its flavor after just a few months. So buy it often and in small quantities you can use up while it’s still fresh.
How to prepare Hungarian Beef Goulash
First I browned the meat, in two batches. Here’s my second batch.
Then I removed the meat from the pot and cooked the onions in some butter. I mixed the paprika and crushed caraway seeds in with the onions. Next I added the meat back along with beef broth and a bay leaf. I cooked it low and slow until the stew meat was tender. About a half hour before the end of the cook time, I added the red bell pepper.
What should I serve with Hungarian Beef Goulash?
This recipe serves the soup over egg noodles. If you prefer, you could serve the soup over boiled potatoes or steamed rice. It would also be delicious with the homemade dumplings I included in my Chicken Paprikash recipe. The dumplings are very easy to make – you can make them while the soup is cooking.
There’s no wrong way to eat Hungarian Beef Goulash. Whether you’re cooking for your family, friends, roommates, or a camp full of cowboys, get this soup into your winter dinner rotation.
Hungarian Beef Goulash
Hungarian Beef Goulash is a soup made with slow-cooked beef stew meat, onions, and red pepper, and flavored with paprika and caraway seeds. Serve this soup over a bowl of egg noodles for a warming and filling dinner. Eastern European comfort food at its best.
Ingredients
- 2 pounds beef stew meat, cut into bite sized chunks
- salt and pepper
- 1 tablespoon canola oil
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 2 sweet onions, thinly sliced
- 3 tablespoons sweet smoked paprika
- 1 teaspoon caraway seeds, crushed (put seeds in a ziploc baggie and crush with a meat mallet or heavy cast iron pan)
- 8 cups beef broth
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 red bell peppers, chopped
- 8 ounces egg noodles
- chopped parsley for garnish
Instructions
Season beef with salt and pepper. In a large Dutch oven or soup pot, heat oil over medium-high heat. Add half of the beef. Cook, stirring often, until browned on all sides. Use tongs to remove beef to a plate. Brown second half of beef and remove to plate.
Reduce heat to medium. Add butter and wait for it to melt. Add onions and season with a little salt and pepper. Cook, stirring occasionally, until onions are soft, about 10 minutes.
Remove pot from heat. Add paprika and caraway seeds and stir to coat the onions. Add beef to the pot. Pour in beef broth and add bay leaf. Turn heat to medium-high and bring to a boil. Then turn heat down to low to medium-low and cover. Let cook for 1 hour and 15 minutes.
After soup has been cooking for 1 hour 15 minutes, add peppers and stir to combine. Cook for 30 minutes longer, or until beef is very tender. Remove bay leaf. Taste and add salt and pepper if needed.
During the last 20 minutes of cook time, bring a large pot of water to a boil and cook noodles according to package directions.
Divide noodles between serving bowls and ladle goulash over noodles. Garnish with parsley.
Bon Appétit!
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