Our easy slow cooker ground beef stroganoff recipe cooks in a few hours and is made creamy with sour cream! It’s a quick family favorite meal even my kids love for dinner.
Ok so my Grandmother used to make this meal all the time when I was little, not in a Crockpot but that is how we roll around here so I figured out how to make her Old Fashioned favorite recipe this way the other night and it was a HUGE hit.
I have actually tweaked these basic ingredients a number of different ways over the years, from making it in a pressure cooker to baking it in the oven like our Beef Stroganoff Casserole, every one has been a win with my girls and husband so I just keep going……
Yes, beef is traditionally used for this classic meal but using hamburger meat like this is easier, gets tender faster, and soaks up more of the flavors in the sauce it is cooked in too – that is why it is our preference from now on.
Ground Beef Stroganoff Ingredients
You are going to want 1-1.5 pounds of lean ground beef to begin with. We buy half of a cow at the beginning of the year from a local farmer so we have a LOT of it and even though it is quite lean you should drain it. I do so in a colander before adding it.
Do you need to cook ground beef before adding into a Crockpot?
Yes, that is necessary to do as you see here above. It will only take about 5 minutes to break up and cook until meat is no longer pink. It doesn’t have to be completely done as it will continue cooking later. Alternatively you could make Crockpot ground beef first, drain, and then make this the same day.
What can you use other than ground beef?
If you like a bit of spice use all or half HOT Jimmy dean ground sausage, it is great!! Another option is to totally change things up and make Slow Cooker Chicken Stroganoff instead.
A can of cream of mushroom soup will create a creamy nature to the sauce for the meat to cook in. Canned is easiest but you could make homemade cream of mushroom if you wanted to make that first.
A packet of French’s onion soup mix, or make homemade if you like, will give it a lot of flavor by just dumping that baby right in. I also like to add minced garlic but that is optional I suppose.
And you need some beef broth to thin out the thick soup to make it saucier in order to coat the noodles better later on.
Do you need to boil egg noodles separately?
Yes, there isn’t enough liquid in the pot to allow them to get tender. Instead, boil them on the stove for about 8 minutes until a bit al dente before draining and then folding into the pot. The only way I have cooked it all together is with our Instant Pot Ground Beef Stroganoff recipe.
How Long to Cook Ground Beef Stroganoff in Slow Cooker
Remember that you are just warming everything together so it thickens and coats the meat so it doesn’t take long. You could enjoy it at the 3 hour mark or leave it for up to 5 but I suggest serving after 4 hours on low. What I do is boil the noodles about 15 minutes before that and incorporate before serving.
We like them coated well so I will only boil 3/4 of a package but you could easily make the whole thing if you want to stretch the meal to feed more people for sure.
How to Make it Creamy
Before you add the noodles you want to add that classic creaminess to the dish. I prefer sour cream for this because that is how Grammie made it all these years and why mess up a good thing right?? Some prefer softened cream cheese, which is an option, but doesn’t have that tang.
Slow Cooker Ground Beef Stroganoff Recipe
Equipment
- 1 pan
- 1 slow cooker
Ingredients
- 1-1.5 pound ground beef
- 1 can cream of mushroom , 10.5 oz
- 1 packet onion soup mix
- 1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
- 1 tbsp garlic, minced
- 1 cup beef broth
- 3/4 cup sour cream
- 1 bag egg noodles, cooked separate to al dente
Instructions
- In a skillet brown your ground beef until no pink remains, drain and pour into your slow cooker.
- Add can of cream of mushroom soup, onion soup mix, W. sauce, garlic and beef broth – stir together.
- Set to low for 4 hours. Then lift lid and stir in sour cream. Recover and set pot to warm.
- Boil egg noodles in a pot over medium high heat until cooked to al dente. Drain and pour in (3/4 of the noodles for a thicker sauce coating or all of them to feed more people) Serve!!
