It all started with a worn recipe card someone’s grandmother kept tucked in the back of her cookbook. A few smudges, a drip of sauce on the corner, handwriting faded with age. Nothing about it looked special. But the moment that lid lifts after eight slow hours, you understand why it survived decades of Sunday dinners.
The ingredient list is painfully straightforward. Two pounds of beef stew meat—cut into one-inch cubes and tossed straight into the bottom of the slow cooker. No browning, no marinating. Just raw, ready to cook low and slow. On top of the beef, sprinkle a packet of onion soup mix. Anyone who’s used it before knows how much flavor is packed in that little envelope. It melts into the meat as it cooks, weaving in savory depth that tastes like you put in far more effort than you actually did.