Goulash
Difficulty 2/5 Ingredients 11 Steps 4
Goulash (Gulyás in Hungarian, meaning cattle stockmen) is a dish from the Hungarian cuisine. Here is one very simple Goulash stew recipe, being pretty close to the idealised version. Make sure to use sweet paprika and not hot paprika. Hot paprika will make the soup too spicy and of the wrong consistency when used exclusively.
Ingredients
- Olive oil
- 3 onions, chopped
- 1.5 lb (750 g) stew beef, cubed
- 2 bell peppers, chopped
- 1 tomato, chopped
- 2 tbsp ground sweet paprika
- 5 black peppercorns
- 1 bay leaf
- 6 cloves garlic
- Salt to taste
- 4 potatoes, chopped
Steps
- Fry half of the onions in a pot with olive oil.
- Layer meat over the fried onions, then raw onions, peppers, tomato, whole garlic cloves, spices and salt. Repeat layers until all ingredients except the potato are used.
- Cover the meat with water. Cover with a lid. Simmer on low heat. Add water only if needed. Almost no stirring is required.
- When the meat is cooked and tender, add potatoes. Add water to cover if needed. Cook 15 more minutes until the potatoes are tender.
Notes from the original
- The colour could be even nicer if you add more paprika in the last 10 minutes.
- You can add ½ pound lean cubed pork after 20 minutes.
- If you're not afraid of fats, add some bacon to the dish.
- A pinch of caraway (seeds or ground) is often added.
Source. Adapted from “Cookbook:Goulash” by Wikibooks contributors, revision of 2025-10-28, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Changes. Steps rewritten into short commands. Introduction shortened. Wiki formatting removed. This adapted recipe is shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.
Photo. Gulash ingredients.jpg by gran, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia. Resized; otherwise unchanged.