Braised Beef Short Ribs Recipe
Featured Comment
“
This was delicious, the original as well as the leftovers! Served with mashed potatoes and a variety of roasted veggies.. Thanks for the recipe.” ~Cindy
Quick Look: Braised Beef Short Ribs
- ⏱️ Prep Time: 15 minutes
- 🍳 Cook Time: 3 hours 30 minutes
- 🕒 Total Time: ~4 hours 15 minutes (plus 30 minutes to rest the meat)
- 👥 Servings: 4
- 📊 Calories: ~932 kcal per serving
- 🔥 Cook Method: Sear on the stove-top, deglaze with red wine, and slow-braise in the oven!
- 👩🍳 Flavor Profile: Rich, deeply beefy, and saucy. Tastes like the best thing you’ve ever ordered at a restaurant.
- ⭐ Difficulty: Intermediate, but every step is straightforward. The oven does most of the work!
SUMMARIZE & SAVE THIS CONTENT ON
What Makes My Braised Short Ribs Recipe So Good
- Braised short ribs is an extremely flavorful and comforting dish. This is truly an amazing short ribs recipe that features braised, fall-off-the-bone tender beef short ribs and my red wine sauce is absolutely incredible!
- A whole roasted garlic bulb adds incredible depth. Instead of minced garlic, a full bulb of garlic goes in cut-side down to slowly caramelize and mellow as it braises. It adds a sweetness to the sauce you just can’t replicate any other way.
- To make these classic short ribs, I will walk you through the classic braising technique of searing the meat in a Dutch oven and then finishing in the oven slow and steady.
- The braising technique is the secret. If you love braised beef, you’ll also love my Mexican braised short ribs for a bold, chipotle-spiced twist on the same technique, or my boneless short ribs if you prefer a slightly leaner cut with an equally incredible red wine sauce.
Ingredient Notes and Substitutions
- Bone-in beef short ribs: Choose the meatiest, thickest ribs you can find at the store (about 1.5-2 inches meat thickness). Beef shrinks quite a bit during cooking, so thicker ribs mean more meat on the plate. Bone-in is highly recommended over boneless here because the bone adds more richness and body to the sauce.
- Dry red wine: Use a dry, full-bodied red you’d actually drink. Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Pinot Noir all work well. Avoid anything labeled “cooking wine,” as it has added salt and lacks the depth you need.
- Beef stock: Use homemade beef stock or a good quality low sodium store-bought beef stock or beef broth.
- Tomato paste: it adds color, body, and a subtle umami depth to the sauce. Make sure to use “tomato paste” not “tomato sauce.”
- Garlic bulb: The whole bulb goes in with just the tips trimmed to expose the cloves. No need to peel or separate it. It roasts slowly in the braise and adds a mellow, sweet garlic flavor throughout the sauce.
- Fresh herbs (thyme, parsley stems): Fresh is important here because they will braise in the liquid for several hours. Dried herbs would work in a pinch but fresh thyme and parsley give the sauce a brighter, more complex flavor.
How to Make Braised Short Ribs: Step-by-Step
Remove the ribs from the fridge and take them out of the packaging. Allow them to rest at room temperature for about 30 minutes before cooking. This helps them cook more evenly and sear better.
Pat the ribs dry with a paper towel, then season generously with coarse salt and cracked pepper on all sides. Drying the surface is key to a good sear.
Preheat a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat and add the canola oil. Sear the ribs in batches of 3 or 4 so they are not overcrowded. Sear them on all 4 sides until deeply golden brown, then set aside on a plate.
In the same pot, sauté the onion, carrots, and celery until softened and golden, about 5 minutes. This will build more flavor for the sauce.
Add a little more oil if needed. Add the garlic bulb cut-side down and let it sear for just a few seconds.
Pour in the red wine while slowly stirring and scraping the bottom of the pot. All those brown bits of fond on the bottom are pure flavor. Don’t skip this step.
Add the ribs back into the pot and lower the heat to medium. Let the ribs simmer in the red wine for about 10 minutes.
Whisk together the beef stock and tomato paste, make sure it’s heated so it doesn’t lower the temperature of the pot and then pour it into the pot.
Add in remaining ingredients, stir everything carefully and cover with a lid.
Transfer the Dutch oven into the preheated oven and cook for 2.5 to 3 hours covered. Then remove the lid and cook for another 30 to 40 minutes until the rib meat is completely tender and falls from the bone.
PRO TIP: make sure to check in on the liquid levels every hour or so and add a little more broth if it’s cooking out too fast. Note that almost half the liquid will cook out.
Carefully remove the ribs from the pot and set them aside (it is completely fine if they fall off the bone). Strain the sauce through a large fine mesh strainer, pressing on the vegetables to extract all the juices.
Once you got all the liquid from the vegetables, discard the leftover solids.
Add the ribs back into the pot with the strained sauce. You can skim any excess fat off the surface of the sauce, or refrigerate overnight and lift the hardened fat off the next day.
Best Sides to Serve with Braised Short Ribs
- Homemade mashed potatoes are the classic, and for good reason. The creamy, buttery potatoes soak up that incredible red wine sauce like nothing else. It is the combination.
- For lighter sides, roasted green beans and mushrooms, sauteed haricot verts, and roasted cauliflower both balance the richness of the beef beautifully. Balsamic roasted carrots are another great option, and they echo the carrot flavor already in the braise.
- A simple crusty bread to mop up the extra sauce is never a bad call either.
Make-Ahead Instructions
This is one of those dishes that is genuinely better the next day. The flavors deepen overnight and the fat floats to the top of the sauce in the refrigerator, hardening into a layer that is very easy to lift off and discard before reheating. If you are making this for a dinner party or special occasion, making it a day ahead is the move.
Cook the ribs completely through the sauce-straining step, let everything cool, and refrigerate in an airtight container with the ribs submerged in the sauce. The next day, skim the fat, then gently reheat everything in the pot over medium heat until warmed through.
Storage and Reheating
- Refrigerator: Store in an airtight container with the ribs submerged in the sauce. They will keep for 3 to 4 days and taste even better on days 2 and 3.
- Reheating: Reheat individual portions in the microwave, or warm everything together in the pot over medium heat until just heated through. Do not boil.
- Freezer: Cool completely, then transfer to a freezer-safe container with sauce covering the meat. Freeze for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator before reheating.
Braised Short Ribs Recipe FAQs
Braising is a method of slowly cooking food using wet and dry heat. This technique starts off with searing the meat first at high temperature and then slow-cooking in the oven with liquid. This technique provides a great amount of flavor along with succulent and tender texture of the meat.
Yes, but the flavor will not be as bold or complex as oven-braised (not as good).
Start by searing the ribs and the vegetables in a pan on the stove, then add everything to the slow cooker. Cook on low for 8 to 9 hours or on high for about 6 hours. When finished, strain the sauce and thicken it with a slurry of cornstarch and cold water or a butter-flour roux whisked in.
After several hours of braising, the vegetables have given everything they have to the sauce and are completely spent. What is left in the strainer is soft, mushy, and mostly flavorless. The sauce gets all of their nutrients and flavor. If you prefer a chunky sauce, you can skip the straining step, but the texture will be different.
Absolutely. They reheat beautifully and the flavor improves overnight. See the make-ahead section above for details.
The easiest method: refrigerate the finished ribs in the sauce overnight. The fat will rise to the top and harden, and you can simply lift it off with a spoon the next morning before reheating and straining the sauce.
More Beef Recipes You Don’t Want To Miss
DID YOU MAKE THIS RECIPE? PLEASE leave a 🌟 star rating! Let me know how you liked it by leaving the 📝 comment below or share and tag me on social media @willcookforsmiles. DON’T FORGET to subscribe to my newsletter!
Braised Short Ribs Recipe
Ingredients
- 4.5-5 lbs bone-in beef short ribs cut in about 2-inch pieces*
- 2 tbsp coarse salt
- 2 tsp cracked black pepper
- 2 tbsp canola oil
- 1 yellow onion
- 3 medium carrots
- 2 celery ribs
- 1 bulb of garlic
- 750 ml dry red wine
- 3 cup beef stock
- 3 tbsp tomato paste
- 6 thyme sprigs
- 6-8 parsley stems with leaves
- 2 tsp dried oregano
- 2 bay leaves
- cracked black pepper
- salt to taste
Instructions
Rest the short ribs:
- Take short ribs out of the refrigerator and out of the package. Let them rest and warm up on the cutting board, on the counter, for about 30 minutes before cooking.
- Slice onion, dice carrots, and celery and set them aside. Peel the outer loose skin of garlic and cut off just the tips to expose the garlic flesh.
- Pat the ribs dry with a paper towel and season generously with salt and pepper on all sides.
Season and sear:
- Preheat a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add canola oil.
- Sear the ribs in batches of 3 or 4 so they are not overcrowded. Sear them on all 4 sides until golden brown.
- Take them out and set aside. (If there is a lot of excess fat from searing the ribs, drain it off.)
Cook vegetables and make the sauce:
- Preheat the oven to 325°F and remove the middle rack in needed, to be able to fit the Dutch oven.
- Sautee the onion, carrots, and celery in the same pot until softened and golden. (Add a little more canola oil if needed.)
- Add garlic bulb cut side down and let it sear for a few seconds.
- Pour in the bottom of wine while slowly stirring and scraping the bottom of the pot.
- Add ribs back into the pot and lower the heat to medium. Let the ribs simmer in red wine for about 10 minutes.
- Whisk together beef stock, tomato paste, and herbs and pour it into the pot.
- Stir everything carefully and cover with a lid.
Cook In The Oven:
- Transfer the Dutch oven into the preheated oven and cook for 2 1/2-3 hours.
- Take off the lid and cook another 30-40 minutes. (Until the rib meat is completely tender.)
Prepare sauce:
- Carefully take the ribs out of the pot and set them aside. (It's okay of they fall off the bone, they are supposed to.)
- Strain the sauce through a large fine mesh strainer. Stir the vegetables in the strainer to extract the juices and discard what is left in the strainer.
- Add the ribs back into the pot with the sauce. You can spoon the excess fat from the surface of the sauce or you can do it the next day while it's cold.
Tips:
- You can serve the ribs right away or the next day. It's actually better the next day and you will have a chance to get rid of the excess fat easily.
- To get rid of the excess fat, refrigerate the cooled ribs in sauce. While it cools, the fat layer on the top will harden. You can easily take it off with a spoon the next day and discard.
Video
Notes
- *PRO TIP: At the store, choose the meatiest, thickest short ribs. These will give you the most meat because beef will shrink quite a bit when it cooks.
- Storing: Make sure to store it in an airtight container, in the refrigerator. Stored properly, they should last 3-4 days.
- Reheating: reheat individual portions in a microwave or reheat all of it in the pot over medium heat just until heated through.
Nutrition
Originally published on Will Cook For Smiles in December 2020.
Would you like to save this recipe?
We'll email this post recipe to you, so you can come back to it later!
All images and text ©Lyubov Brooke for ©Will Cook For Smiles. Please do not use my images without prior permission. If using my posts in collections and features, please link back to this post for the recipe.
Disclaimer: Nutrition information shown is not guaranteed to be 100% accurate as most ingredients and brands have variations.
This recipe was so simple to follow and OMGosh, so delicious!! I embellish on a lot of recipes but I didn’t on this one – followed it through to the end!! Thank you for sharing and I will be making this one again!! And I will be checking out what else you are making from time to time.
Thank you so much for the kind words! I’m so glad it turned out delicious for you. 🙂
So delicious ☺️
Thanks, Lori! 🙂
How would you serve it the next day? How will the reheating process be? Can I reheat the whole pan in the oven?
If you have leftovers, you can reheat individual portions in a microwave or reheat all of it in the pot over medium heat.
This recipe was amazing! I started out at 2 hours at 300 degrees covered and then 2.5 hrs at 375 uncovered. Fabulous!
I am so glad you liked it! Thanks for taking the time to let me know!
Why discard the veggies at the end?
Hey Anthony! After you strain the sauce, what’s will be left is not much of the veggies. It will be mushy and broken from straining and you’ve gotten all the nutrients out of them. If you don’t want a smooth sauce though, and don’t mind a chunky sauce, you don’t have to strain it but keep it chunky.
This was delicious, the original as well as the leftovers! Served with mashed potatoes and a variety of roasted veggies.. Thanks for the recipe.
I am so glad you liked it, Cindy!
Any recommendations for the wine used? I do NOT drink red wine, and I only enjoy very fruit-forward sweet white wines. That obviously wouldn’t be appropriate for this recipe.
I always get overwhelmed in the wine aisle; any specific brands/ types would be much appreciated!
Hi Crystal, I find that both the barefoot brand and the Chateau Ste Michelle brand have a good flavor and are not very expensive you will want a dry wine such as Cabernet Sauvignons, Merlots, or Pinot Noirs. Hope that helps!
How would you modify this for a crock pot? Season and sear meat and cook veggies to make sauce separately and then combine in crock pot for the 2.5 to 3 hours + 30/40 minutes? Planning to make this for Fathers’ day weekend.
It is easy to make in the crockpot but the flavor won’t be exactly the same, it won’t have as bold of a flavor as braised. Start by searing the ribs in a pan then add to the crockpot, then sear the veggies and add them to the crockpot, next add the liquids. If cooking on low I would say it will take about 8-9 hours and on high 6 hours. When it is done you can make a gravy with flour or cornstarch. To thicken with flour put equal parts butter and flour in a saucepan and cook for a minute then add in the liquid and whisk until smooth and thick. To use corn starch, first, use COLD water or broth and mix it together and then pour into the hot saucepan with the liquid and whisking until thickened.
Another smash hit from your site. Thank you! This meat literally fell off the bone. Served with your mashed potatoes and green beans. So Good!
I am so glad you liked it, Jojo!