This impressive braised short ribs recipe has mouthwateringly tender beef slowly cooked in a caramelized onion and red wine broth.
Think of this dish as French onion soup meets red wine braised short ribs. It’s cozy, it’s rich, and it’s perfect for a cold evening. We’ll caramelize lots of onions for this dish, adding a sweet, rich onion flavor to the braising liquid. Then, to achieve that pull-apart texture, you’ll braise the beef for three hours, but all of that’s hands-off.
You’ll be left with unbelievably tender and flavorful beef and a thick, rich gravy swimming with caramelized onions. Your best bet is to serve this over something that soaks up all of it, like creamy polenta, grits, mashed potatoes, buttered noodles, or thick, crusty bread.
Key Ingredients
- Short Ribs: There are two popular kinds of beef short ribs sold in stores, chuck and plate. If you have the choice, use plate short ribs cut into smaller pieces (3 to 4 inches long), sometimes labeled English-style. They have the best balance of meat and fat and become especially tender when cooked low and slow. Chuck short ribs are smaller and a bit more irregular in shape, but will still work. We also use short ribs for these bbq beef ribs.
- Onions: Use yellow onions or sweet onions in this dish. Both will caramelize wonderfully.
- Tomato Paste and Garlic: The tomato paste adds richness. I love the double-concentrated tubes, since the tube and screw on lid make it easy to store what you haven’t used. Fresh garlic is best here.
- Flour: Use all-purpose flour to help thicken the gravy.
- Wine: A dry red wine is perfect. Use something you’d drink. We like Chianti, Bordeaux blends, or Merlot.
- Stock: The short ribs add a lot of beefiness to the gravy, so plain store-bought beef stock works nicely. However, to make this completely from scratch, here is our beef stock recipe.
- Herbs: We love fresh thyme in this and always add a bay leaf. Rosemary is nice, too, but can be overpowering. If you have it on hand, feel free to add ¼ to ½ teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary to the beef before braising in the oven.
Find the full recipe with measurements below.
How to Make Braised Short Ribs
Tip 1: Brown your short ribs. Before braising the beef, you really want to take the time to brown the short ribs on all sides first. This adds flavor to the pot, which we will use to build the braising liquid, and it adds flavor and texture to the beef.
Heat a Dutch oven or braiser, add olive oil, then brown on all sides. Since we have a lot of short ribs, you’ll likely need to do this in two batches.
Tip 2: Caramelize the onions. If you’ve ever made French onion soup, then you know the beauty of caramelized onions. They take a little time, but I promise it’s worth it for this showy dish.
To do it, you’ll add a little butter to the rendered beef fat in the pot (yep!). Then add your onions, give them a good stir, and cover the pot. Leave them for 10 minutes. When you uncover them, they will have softened and released some moisture into the pan. From there, uncover and continue cooking, stirring often, until they are deeply browned and smell sweet (30-ish minutes more).
Tip 3: Simmer the wine. As you are building the braising liquid, add wine to the pot. It adds so much flavor, and red wine braised short ribs are an absolute classic! Before adding anything else to the pot, simmer the wine for a few minutes to burn off some of the alcohol.
Tip 4: Cover with a lid and slowly braise in the oven. To get that pull-apart, tender beef, you need to slowly cook the short ribs for around 3 hours. Think of it as similar to making beef stew, where you want the fat and collagen to melt and the connective tissues to soften and become really tender.
Add the browned beef to the braising liquid, and make sure it’s mostly covered so it does not dry out. Then cook slowly, covered, in the oven for about 3 hours. After 3 hours, the beef will be shockingly tender and so delicious.
Serving Suggestions
You’ll be left with a lot of braising liquid. It’s thick, laced with sweet onions, and absolutely delicious (with or without the beef!). I highly recommend skimming the fat at the top of the pot. There’s going to be quite a bit. Once you do, you can serve the beef on or off the bone. A few bones may already have slid off the meat (it’s that tender). We remove the bones, place chunks of tender beef on top of polenta, grits, or mashed potatoes, then spoon a generous amount of the braising liquid over the top. You’ll probably run out of beef before the gravy, but I still think you should save it for spooning over something else for dinner another night.
This dish is intentionally rich. If you’d like something a little lighter to start or on the side, we love this fennel salad, peppy lemon vinaigrette over greens, classic roasted carrots, or these roasted carrots and parsnips.
More Mouthwatering, Tender Beef Recipes
Tender Braised Beef Short Ribs
-
PREP
-
COOK
-
TOTAL
These short ribs turn out incredibly tender, cooked in a rich caramelized onion and red wine sauce. They are absolutely perfect served over our creamy polenta, homemade mashed potatoes, or next to a thick, crusty slice of bread.
6 Servings
You Will Need
8 bone-in beef short ribs (about 3 ¾ pounds), cut into 3-inch pieces
Salt and fresh ground black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil (30ml)
4 medium yellow onions, thinly sliced, about 6 cups
2 tablespoons butter (28g)
2 tablespoons tomato paste (32g)
4 garlic cloves, minced
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (16g)
1 ½ cups dry red wine, like Chianti, Bordeaux blends, or Merlot (355ml)
4 cups beef stock (945ml)
8 fresh thyme sprigs
1 bay leaf
Directions
1Prepare the short ribs: Season them on all sides with salt (we use 2 to 3 teaspoons of fine sea salt). Heat the olive oil in a large Dutch oven or braiser over medium-high heat, then brown the beef on all sides, about 8 minutes. Transfer the browned beef to a plate. You may need to do this in batches.
2Cook the onions: When all the beef has been removed from the pan, reduce the heat to medium, add the butter and onions, then cover with a lid. Cook for 10 minutes. Uncover the pot and continue cooking the onions, stirring occasionally and scraping up any stuck-on browned bits from the bottom and sides. The onions take 30 to 40 minutes to caramelize. Keep a close eye on them. When you notice they begin to brown, stir them more often to prevent burning.
3Prepare the oven: Preheat the oven to 325°F (162°C).
4Build the gravy: Add the tomato paste, garlic, and flour to the caramelized onions. Cook, stirring around the pan for about one minute.
5Add the wine: Slowly pour in the wine, and bring to a simmer. Stir it around the pan and simmer for about 2 minutes. Continue to the next step when you no longer smell strong alcohol, but instead smell sweet onions with aromas of the wine.
6Braise: Add the beef stock, thyme, and bay leaf. Taste, and adjust with pinch or two of salt and pepper. Then. place the browned short ribs back into the pan so that they are covered by the liquid. Cover the pot with a lid, then transfer to the oven and cook for about 3 hours, or until the meat pulls easily away from the bone. Check on them about halfway to make sure the beef is mostly covered by the braising liquid.
7Serve: Remove the pot from the oven. Skim the excess fat from the surface of the sauce. Remove and discard the thyme stems and bay leaf before serving.
Adam and Joanne’s Tips
- Leftovers: Store them in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 4 days, or freeze for up to 3 months. When storing these, I prefer to remove them from the bone and then keep them covered with the onion braising liquid. Reheat slowly over low to medium heat.
- Buying short ribs: Short ribs are cut from larger plates, so their width varies by store. Most often, you will see lengths of 2 to 3 inches, which is what was used in the photos above. There are two popular kinds of beef short ribs sold in stores, chuck and plate. Both work, but plate short ribs have the best balance of meat and fat and become especially tender when cooked low and slow. Do not use beef back ribs for this recipe.
- The nutrition facts provided are estimates.
Nutrition Per Serving
Serving Size
1/6 of the recipe
/
Calories
705
/
Total Fat
37.8g
/
Saturated Fat
15.5g
/
Cholesterol
177.7mg
/
Sodium
1298.9mg
/
Carbohydrate
20.7g
/
Dietary Fiber
3.2g
/
Total Sugars
7.8g
/
Protein
58.3g