Instructions: I found a wonderful, easy way to thicken crockpot stews. When you put the ingredients into the crock pot, add 1/4 cup of arborio rice.

Cook on low heat for 8 or more hours. By the time the stew is done, the rice will have disintegrated and thickened the gravy nicely. Nothing to do at the last minute. And best of all-no added fat. I dont know whether other types of rice would work the same way. Arborio is such a nice, creamy rice that it works perfectly.

Give it a try.

I find this very interesting because recently someone told me to use angel hair pasta (broken up into small pieces) to thicken a gravy made basically from chicken broth and herbs. I tried it and it worked great, although there were little bits of pasta in the gravy. This didnt alter the taste, it just added texture. Im going to try your suggestion with the rice next time I make a gravy. Thanks for the tip.

Another thing that works well is Cream of Wheat cereal. If you get the instant kind, you can add it at the last minute, which makes it easier to adjust.

instant mashed potatoes - best thickener around - add a little, stir it in, add more if you need it.

I dont know if this has already been answered, but I use oat flour as a thickening agent for soups, stews, and gravies.

My wife is allergic to wheat flour and cornstarch, so using either of these as a thickening agent is not possible. Instead, we make our own oat flour by putting regular oatmeal in a food processor and grinding it until a very fine texture. It never gets as fine as wheat flour, but it works very well as a thickening agent. Mixing the oatflour with a bit of liquid and then adding during the last half hour of a stew cooking should thicken it up rather nicely.

Another possibility is rice flour. Itll give you a nice smooth consistency, and will blend in much quicker if you need a thickener for a short-cooking dish.

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