Beef and Broccoli in the Crock Pot

While Arturo completed his PhD we lived in a little house in town and when we were too lazy to cook we ordered delivery and usually Chinese! Now that we live in the middle of nowhere there are those nights that we miss the ease of picking up the phone and having that greasy, but oh so good stuff delivered to our door! A favorite of mine is a simple beef and broccoli served with just steamed rice. So to help the craving for a little beef and broccoli from time to time I created a recipe that is easy to put together and almost as good as the delivery stuff. This recipe also uses a cut of meat that we have a ton of in the freezer, round steak. We hope you enjoy!

Crock Pot Beef and Broccoli

1 beef bouillon cube
1 cup warm water
1/2 cup low sodium soy sauce
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon red pepper flakes
1 onion sliced
1 pounds round steak, cut into strips
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1 large head of broccoli

Start by layering the onion in the bottom of crock pot, then place the sliced round steak over the top of the onion. In a medium bowl combine the bouillon cube, warm water, soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic, sesame oil and red pepper flakes, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Poor this mixture over the round steak and onions in the crock pot.

Set the crock pot to low and cook for 6-8 hours or on high for 4 hours.

When there is 40 minutes left of cooking time, spoon 2 tablespoons of liquid from the slow cooker into a bowl and whisk the cornstarch into the liquid making a “slurry” that is smooth and consistent in color. Add the slurry back to the crock pot and cook on high for 30 minutes to thicken the sauce.

While your sauce is thickening, steam your broccoli using a basket steamer in a pot with about 1/2 an inch of simmering water . And cook your rice. Add your broccoli to the crock pot, stir to coat in the sauce. Serve over rice.

We also like to pick up some frozen egg rolls and wantons and pop them in the oven to get that full “Chinese delivery” experience! One day I will try my hand at making egg rolls and wantons from scratch!

Arturo received his PhD from Kansas State University the fall of 2013. He studied in the department of Animal Science and his research was done in ruminant nutrition. So he is a nutritionist for cows! In 2015 he started his own ruminant nutrition consulting company. His customers rely on him to create balanced diets or “rations”, containing the optimal levels of protein, energy and minerals for their cattle to maintain optimal health and grow efficiently. These rations are created with the feed resources that his customers have on hand. Most of them farm their own feed for their cattle. He will take samples of these feed stuffs and send them off to a lab to be analyzed, so he and his customer know exactly what the nutritional value of each feedstuff is. From there he will create rations for their cows, bulls or calves to grow or produce at the appropriate rate. He goes to his customer’s operations once a month and is always available by phone and email.