8 Canned Beef Stews Brands Ranked Worst To Best

Beef stew is a classic dish that is great on a cold, rainy day. It is one of those dishes that you could go back a couple hundred years and still find filling the same niche. Good and filling fare. Thanks to modern convenience, we have a quicker avenue to making beef stew, rather than slaving over a hot stove for several hours. Canned beef stew is a simple way to get a bowl of a hearty, meaty meal within minutes. Even if you're not planning on eating the stew plain, it makes a fantastic addition to other complex dishes, like Shepherd's Pie.

While canning is great for convenience, canned meals seem to have a complicated reputation. I'm known as a thrifty shopper and have partaken in a canned stew more than a few times over the course of my life. I am speaking from experience when I say that where you benefit in saving time and energy, you often sacrifice in flavor and texture. Canned beef stew in particular has been compared to dog food. The comparison has been made so often that many dog food brands actually have a beef stew flavor for your canine companion. That's why I'm setting out to find a beef stew that manages to balance flavor, texture, convenience, and price. I'm hoping to beat the dog food comparisons and find a nice and filling canned beef stew.

I love shopping at Dollar Tree. Just take a look at my article history if you don't believe me. I go to Dollar Tree for everything from groceries to kitchen essentials and organizational tools. It is with a heavy heart that I then say that this brand of canned beef stew was purchased at my dollar store of choice. I had such high hopes. Dollar Tree is such a sleeper hit in so many ways that I felt confident it would deliver at least a mid-grade beef stew.

It is vile. This was one of the beef stews I refused to save for leftovers. I physically recoiled upon opening the can. I had to deep-clean my microwave after cooking it, and the texture was instantly off-putting. Southgate smelled worse than dog food. The first clue that something was wrong should have been that it contains added 'textured vegetable protein product'. Those are not words you would require on a good can of beef stew. As for the flavor, it tasted overwhelmingly of how it smelled for about two whole seconds, and then vanished into a flavorless goop. The 'meat', which I'm sure was the aforementioned textured vegetable protein product, was textured like those orange circus peanut candies, and the gravy was so foul I was having a hard time swallowing it. I try to find a positive in everything I eat, so I'll give Southgate Beef Stew this ... it only costs $1.25.

Dollar General is what I consider my backup dollar store. It has higher prices than Dollar Tree, but also has a broader selection of items for sale. While Clover Valley is not the store brand for Dollar General, Dollar General does offer quite a lot of Clover Valley products. The Clover Valley Canned Beef Stew was one of the heftier cans I purchased for this article. 20-ounces for $2.75. It stood out from the line-up.

My first indication that I wasn't going to enjoy this can of stew was Clover Valley boasting the inclusion of 'textured vegetable protein'. Thankfully, this can of beef stew was far more tolerable than Southgate. It had next to no scent when opened, and it didn't explode all over my microwave. There were mercifully few issues before I taste-tested this can. One issue was the lack of a pull-tab can-top, and the second was that it had quite a lot of congealed fat that left residue all over the bowl. It made rinsing the can a real pain in the neck. Tasting it was not pleasant. I could, if pressed, consume this canned beef stew. But only if pressed. The initial flavor was that of an okay beef stew, which quickly faded to a sour and metallic aftertaste. It left me wanting to rinse out my mouth. The 'beef' has the same off-putting squeaky texture as the other vegetable protein did, and made for an all around unpleasant experience.

I was pretty confident going into Progresso's various beef stews. I have never really had cause to doubt that the brand knew what it was doing. Though if I had taken a peek at where it ranked on a black bean soup comparison, I might have been given pause. Far and away, the Pitmaster brand Progresso stew was the most expensive to purchase. Each can comes in at $4.69 for 18.5-ounces. I was hoping that price would translate into quality.

Upon opening the pull-tab can, I was immediately hit with a waft of jalapeño, which then dissipated into a very neutral beef-stew scent. This stew left quite a bit of itself behind in my microwave, but I suppose that's what I get for not following the printed instructions and using a covered container. The flavor was a little confusing. I could taste the jalapeño peppers, but I could not feel them. There was absolutely no burn. In fact, this stew's predominant mouth-feel was so oily it took me a few glasses of water to really get myself back to neutral palette for the rest of the taste testing. Its biggest crime is being bland for having so much advertised flavor. It's a perfectly serviceable stew, and it did not make me recoil in horror. But the bar has got to be higher than that ... right?

Despite the fact that the Campbell Company recently rebranded to drop the soup from its name, the company can still put together a pretty mean soup. The can of Chunky Hearty Beef Barley I purchased opened easily with a pull tab and had minimal oily residue. It smelled warm, but far more like a tomato than expected. The biggest surprise was that the can included grains. I'm not a beef stew expert, by any stretch of the definition, but I don't think I would ever assume a stew would have grains in it. Beef, potatoes, carrots, maybe some other assorted veggies, sure. But grains? Not on my texture card for a stew. However, I still gave it a shot.

Campbell's I hate to tell you that this wasn't beef stew. It tasted fine, in fact, it was delicious. It just wasn't a beef stew. It was a minestrone soup. There's no two ways about it, this was a really solid, easy to make, can of minestrone beef soup. It tasted note-for-note like the minestrones that were always on offer at church potlucks when I was a child. As this can so completely missed the prompt, I cannot rate it any higher. It fails to actually be a beef stew, or even a beef soup. I would still recommend it. It was quite nice. Just be aware it's not going to give you the same satisfaction as beef stew if that's what you're after.

I will give this to Progresso, for all the oiliness and high-price it still produces a serviceable stew. After my first foray with the Pitmaster brand of products, I went into the Smokehouse-Style with tempered expectations. Those expectations were shaken a bit as the only thing I could smell upon opening the can was fake smoke. I understand that a canned product is unlikely to have proper smoked meat inside, but the acrid tang of fake smoke was immediately unappetizing.

After cleaning out my microwave from the oily splatter left behind, I dove right into the taste testing portion of the experience. The first thing I noted was the heat on my palette. This Smokehouse style actually had a bit of spiciness to it. It was just enough to be pleasant and let me know I was eating something warm and filling without it becoming a predominant sensation in the dish. Sadly, aside from that, the flavors fell to very muted notes of beef and potatoes. I tried to taste some of the vegetables individually, but they carried very little flavor on their own, and added very little to the dish. The meat and potatoes were cooked properly, but held practically no individual flavor either. At least the fake smoke smell dissipated after microwaving. It was a good enough stew that I saved the leftovers – just not good enough to break into the top three.

If I take nothing else away from this experience, I now know that Progresso loves, loves, loves their oil. Each bowl of Progresso stew needs a solid stir to incorporate the oil that will rise to the surface. At least they taste good. In fact, as soon as I popped the tab on this can of stew, I was hit with all the right scents. Beef, potato, carrot, warm and inviting herbs. I easily forgave the mess it made in the microwave because it smelled excellent. For $2.38 (though I got it on sale for only $1.98) I was very impressed.

My only proper complaint about the Progresso Beef Pot Roast with Country Vegetables is its lack of staying power. It left almost no flavor or aftertaste in my mouth. Once I swallowed it was like I hadn't actually had anything flavorful. However, while I was taste testing it, it was firing on all cylinders. Herbs and potatoes blended with the beef and everything tasted as it should. The Beef Pot Roast with Country Vegetables lost points only for the stringiness of the pot roast – it got stuck in my teeth more than any of the other brands – and for the thinness of the stew. This was far more of a soup than a stew. Still, the top three in terms of flavor, scent, and overall enjoyment.

Walmart gets a lot of the same flak that dollar stores do. You can find so much in its aisles, but so much of what they offer isn't worth the pennies you pay for them. You'll find lists of things to avoid buying at Walmart, so to say I was nervous about a Great Value brand canned beef stew would be an understatement. For $1.50, I was not expecting much, and was bracing myself for another Southgate experience. Although there was no mention of vegetable protein on the can, and it came with a pull-tab top, so it was already out ahead of the dollar store stews.

The scent from the can was of warm beef stock, and it didn't leave an oily residue behind. While it did leave a bit of a mess in the microwave, everything else about Great Value was checking off every box. The flavor was just as good as the scent led me to believe, a mellow taste that was vegetable-forward. This built to a lovely peak of herbaceous beef. All the meat and potatoes were cooked thoroughly. The only reason Great Value Hearty Beef Pot Roast Soup isn't my number 1 pick of canned beef stews is that the texture is too ... soupy. It's a thin broth, rather than a thick gravy. Seriously, though, you should get this soup during the next blustery, rainy day. It's really good.

If you're going to be known for your beef stew, you've got to do it right. I am always skeptical of long-standing brands. I assume they will rest on their laurels and make no effort to improve or adapt their products for the current market. While Dinty Moore has dabbled in flavors beyond beef stew that were popular, the brand has long since been known as 'the' canned beef stew. I was pleasantly surprised to find I very much enjoyed the product.

Not only was Dinty Moore's pull-tab top one of the easiest to peel back, but even cold it smelled like warm-cooked stew. I was still bracing myself for disappointment when I went to take a bite. To be completely frank, it was great. It was simply beef stew. There's no frills about it, and I would probably end up adding some extra flavor to it if I were to eat it again. But straight out of the can into the microwave, this was the most beef-stew-like canned beef stew I had throughout this whole experience. Aside from some minor texture quibbles with the gravy, which was a little mealy, it scored very highly. Of all of the cans I procured for this article, Dinty Moore is the only one that I ate the entirety of during the taste test. It filled the belly, warmed the soul, and is everything I'm looking for in a quick-serve beef stew.

I took copious notes during the tasting portion of this article. Each canned stew was given four different criteria. First impression – that being the smell and pour of the stew upon opening the can and dispensing it into a bowl. Taste — rather self explanatory. Taste was based solely on my own personal preferences. I made sure to take at least two full bites, and then eat a piece of beef on its own to make my determination. Texture – how did it feel in the mouth, and was it enough like beef stew? I am a big believer in texture in food. Even if something is delicious, if it doesn't feel right, it's going to lose points. The final criterion was convenience – how easy was the can to open? Did it make a mess while cooking?

Using those criteria, I scored each canned stew on a scale of 1 to 10, and came up with the ranking using that metric. I also used the same beige bowl for each can, which I washed thoroughly between tests so there was no flavor contamination. If you are concerned about the amount of beef stew being utilized for this article, rest assured, I don't believe in food waste, so aside from Southgate and Clover Valley, all the stew was eventually eaten by me and my family. The two worst brands were disposed of with prejudice. I could not inflict them upon my family or myself.