I cook stew on the stove top.

I am a lover of crockpots!! I use mine year round especially in the summer...don't have to heat up the house...and in the winter for stews & soups. I could do without a microwave easier than I could a crock pot..

Last time I made beef stew I did it in the crockpot. I got the recipe from Williams-Sonoma and it was delicious. BUT--a lot of the prep was frying bacon and browning the meat on the stovetop. The meat was so tender--yum! That's making me hungry for beef stew!

Usually in a pot atop the stove ...

... then added to my pot.

Tried a belt at church yard sale ... way too short: must have been for a kid!

o j

Pressure cooker. Ready, fast! Beats a Crock hands down.

Always cook my soups and stews on top of the stove, in a big dutch oven. That way, I can 'fiddle ' with them while they cook. :-)

Crock pot, baked, stove..depends on what else.. Is going on.

been oven cooking at 350 for about 2-3 hours...we don't have large enough crock pot...

Slow cooker or pressure cooker, heavy pot on top of stove...whatever works for me that day. I haven't done an oven stew in a long time. If it's mid day and I expect to be busy closer to dinner time, I've even pressure cooked part way through, then turned my Fagor - (it's elec pressure or slow combination appliance) to slow cook to finish and then hold.

I'm about to run in now and put a small browned pork loin (the Fagor, has a great browning feature too) in to pressure cook with a little broth, make some mashed potatoes. We got started on a pruning project outside and now I'm cold, and hungry - nothing cooked.

I make stew at work. We use scrap sirloin for it. I boil the meat until it is tender. I take that and put it in my pan and keep it hot. Then I do the carrots in the beef broth. They take longer to cook then the potatoes and onions. When the carrots are done I put them in with the meat. Then I do the potatoes and onions. Unless I have enough room in the kettle for all of them then I just start with the carrots and add the potatoes and onions after a bit so they all get done at the same time.
Then I make my gravy with the broth and I add some bouillion if it does have enough flavor. I also add some Worcestershire to it.
I get lots of compliments on it. We serve biscuits with it.
I don't even own a crock pot. Dh wouldn't eat much I would cook in it anyway.

Pot on top of the range for me, too. Not a big fan of crockpots--seems wasteful to me to run a heat-producing appliance all day, to make something I can make much faster on the range. I can adapt most crockpot recipes to be made in 30-60 minutes rangetop--that seems so much more economical. Of course, stew takes a little longer, but even so, far less time than in a crock pot.

I don't own a crockpot and have no desire to own one. I've never cooked stew in the oven, wouldn't know how. I always cook it on the stove top. I only make it about two or three times a year, I'm not a big fan of stew.

I like cooking on top of the stove too. Don't care much for crock pots at all.

I usually cook mine on a stove top, but my favorite (in the summer at least) is in a cast iron kettle over a camp fire :-)

Right now, with the wood stove burning, I try to cook as much as I can on that.

It is perfect for making a lazy afternoon beef stew!
I get out my cast iron dutch oven, keep the fire down a little, and keep stirring.

Serve with fresh bread and Sunday afternoon football!

I was able to do both Saturday--two on the stove simmering away and one in the crockpot simmering away. And they're all good. Makes no differencein taste, except, I could throw it all into the crockpot and stir it once or twice, without doing the veggies (in oil/butter) by themselves and then adding the protein. I do have a white chicken chili I make in the oven, and it's one of my standards. I guess it doesn't matter how it gets done, as long as it gets done? Good enough for me!

The stew recipes I've liked best start with browning and seasoning the meat. That's most easily done using the pot or dutch oven used for the stew because the enhanced flavor produced is in the pieces stuck to the bottom of the pot as well as the browned meat. This does make a big difference.

After that step, stove top vs oven may just be personal preference, the end result is the same if the time is about the same. Meat can't be browned in a slow cooker and I suspect many people skip that step when using one.

I never do the veggies separately. The meat gets browned, liquids added, then the veggies get added when appropriate ......all in the same big pot. That goes for any kind of stew or braised roast. Everybody gets to the finish line all at once.