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Red Wine Braised Short Ribs (over mashed potatoes)

BeefSlow cookerDate nightMake-ahead

Short ribs braised all day in red wine until they fall off the bone, served over buttery mashed potatoes with a glossy reduced sauce.

My recipe, written for a GreenPan Elite slow cooker: sear, sauté and deglaze in the insert, then slow cook. It's the date-night dish that does the work for you. When she arrives, the place smells incredible and you're not stuck at the stove.

At a glance

Best made the day before
30 minSear + build
8 h / 5 hLow / high
15 minSauce + mash
4Servings
–kcal / plate
–Protein
–Zinc
–B12

What makes it work

  • A hard, dark sear on every side
  • Boil the wine down before the lid goes on
  • Chill overnight, then lift off the fat cap
  • Reduce the strained liquid into a glossy sauce
method ↓

Good to know

  • Use bone-in, English-cut short ribs
  • Most of the alcohol cooks off, but not all
  • Short ribs are fatty, so skimming matters
notes ↓

Ingredients (4 servings)

Short ribs

Mashed potatoes

To finish

Method

  1. Season (the night before, if you can). Pat the short ribs dry and salt and pepper them on every side.
  2. Sear. Set the GreenPan to Brown/Sauté, add the tallow, and sear the ribs in batches until deep brown on every side, 2–3 minutes a side. Don't crowd them. Set them aside. Use wooden or silicone tools to protect the ceramic coating.
  3. Build the base. In the rendered fat, cook the onion, carrot and celery 5 minutes until softened. Add the garlic and tomato paste and cook 2 minutes, stirring, until the paste darkens to brick red.
  4. Boil off the wine. Pour in the wine, scrape up every browned bit, and let it boil on Sauté until it's reduced by about half, 8–10 minutes. This cooks off much of the alcohol and its raw taste before the lid goes on.
  5. Slow cook. Add the broth, thyme and bay. Nestle the ribs back in, bone side up, with the liquid most of the way up their sides. Cook on Low for about 8 hours or High for 5, until the meat falls off the bone.
  6. Chill and skim (best). Move the ribs to a container. Strain the liquid over them, pressing on the vegetables, and refrigerate overnight. The fat sets into a solid cap you can lift off in one piece. Short on time? Strain the liquid into a cup and let it sit 10 minutes, then spoon the fat off the top.
  7. Make the sauce. Simmer the skimmed liquid in a wide pan, or in the insert on Sauté, until it's reduced by about half and coats a spoon, 10–15 minutes. Warm the ribs in the sauce, spooning it over them until they're glazed.
  8. Mash. Boil the potatoes in salted water until a knife slides in easily, about 15 minutes. Drain them, let them steam dry for a minute, then mash with the butter, warm milk and salt.
  9. Plate. Make a swoosh of mash and set a short rib on top. You can pull the bone out first or leave it in for drama. Spoon the sauce over and finish with parsley and a little horseradish or lemon zest to cut the richness.

Nutrition per plate

This is calculated from the same USDA data as Build a Day. Change it here:

Portion
Mashed potatoes

% of the daily target for men (the same targets as Build a Day). ~ = mostly estimated. 4 lb of bone-in short ribs is counted as about 26 oz of cooked meat, using USDA's braised short ribs with fat (before skimming). The strained vegetables count at a quarter, the wine at half (most of its calories are alcohol, which mostly cooks off), and the broth, tomato paste and searing fat in full. The broth uses the site's bone broth entry.

Nutrition notes

How much of the wine's alcohol is left?

Less than you'd think, but not zero. USDA's alcohol-retention measurements show that alcohol stirred into a dish and simmered keeps about 40% after 15 minutes, 25% after 1 hour, 10% after 2 hours and 5% after 2½ hours.[1] Boiling the wine down on Sauté before the lid goes on drives off a good share at the start. One caveat is that a covered slow cooker loses less vapor than an open simmer, so expect a bit more than the open-pot figures. Either way, after reducing and 8 hours of braising, what's left in a serving is a small fraction of a glass. The Alcohol & Liver page covers what matters at full doses. (Strong: USDA analytical data. The slow-cooker adjustment is inferred.)

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The sauce is gelatin-rich

Short ribs are full of connective tissue, which is why they're tough when grilled fast and silky when braised slow. Hours of moist heat turn that collagen into gelatin, and it ends up in the sauce. That's what makes the reduction glossy, and why it sets when chilled. Together with the bone broth, it adds glycine that balances the methionine in the meat, the same logic as the pho bowl. (Moderate: well-established chemistry. The glycine amount isn't measured for this sauce.)

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Rich, but beef fat is low in omega-6

This is a rich plate. Short ribs are well marbled, and the panel counts them before skimming, so it's an upper estimate. Beef fat is only a few percent linoleic acid, far below pork fat or seed oils (compare carnitas). Lifting off the chilled fat cap removes a lot of the fat without touching the flavor, which stays in the gelatin and the reduction. (Strong: USDA composition data)

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References

  1. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service. USDA Table of Nutrient Retention Factors, Release 6. 2007 (alcohol factors from Augustin et al. 1992). PDF