Slow Cooker Beef Short Ribs with Polenta

These red wine braised beef short ribs are slow cooked for hours until they are tender, juicy, and fall off the bone. Using a fool proof oven baked polenta method, you’re left with deliciously braised short ribs, creamy polenta, and topped with a smooth vegetable gravy.

Short Rib Ingredients

The ingredients for this dish are pretty much staple ingredients: beef stock, garlic, yellow onion, carrots, celery, thyme, tomato paste, parsley, and red wine. I almost always have these ingredients on hand. One ingredient you’ve seen me talk about in my soup posts is the ‘better than bouillon paste’. I’ve been loving this ingredient to give my soups/sauces and extra punch of flavor or ‘umami’. For this recipe I used the organic beef flavor.

Picking Short Ribs

When shopping for beef short ribs, first you want to make sure you’re picking bone-in short ribs. The bones will give it so much more flavor while it cooks. Next you want to pick the meatiest short ribs, I like to look for about 1 inch 1/2 thickness (they will shrink when cooking). There are different cuts, but English cut is most typical in most local grocery stores, usually 2-4 inches with only 1 bone, and what I used above. There is also a flanken cut, which has multiple bones and typically need to be cut down.

Braising Short Ribs

The definition of braise in the Oxford dictionary is to ‘fry lightly, then stew it closely in a closed container’. This is exactly what we are going to do with our short ribs, get a nice sear on each side, then put them in the slow cooker. Prior to searing, I seasoned both sides of the short ribs with kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper. Then, I seared the short ribs in batches in my cast iron skillet using grape seed oil (you can use whichever high smoke point oil you have on hand). I seared them for about a minute or two on each side until they had a nice crust.

As I finished searing each short rib, I placed them into my crockpot/slow cooker. Can we all take a moment to bask in the seared short rib beauty?!

Once you have seared all the short ribs, lower the skillet heat to medium/low and add in the onion and garlic. Sauté for 2 minutes to get a light char. Add in the wine and scrape up all the delicious bits on the bottom of the pan. Pour this over the short ribs in the crockpot and add the rest of the ingredients.

Slow cooking short ribs

The goal is to cook the short ribs low and slow. I cooked mine for 8 hours and I wouldn’t recommend cooking them for any less time. You want the short ribs to be fall off the bone, melt in your mouth tender.

I carefully removed the short ribs from the slow cooker, the thyme, and the bay leaves. Also, check for bones because some will have fallen off during the cooking process (#TenderMeatGoals).

Making short rib gravy

Don’t you dare discard those vegetables! Using an immersion blender, we are going to turn those delicious carrots, onions, celery, and garlic into gravy. Continue passing the immersion blender until no large pieces remain. Taste and add a pinch of salt or fresh ground black pepper if needed (and try to control your urge to keep tasting this amazing gravy).

Polenta

Polenta is a tasty side dish made out of cornmeal. When choosing cornmeal, make sure you use medium grind or coarse grind. I advise against fine, because it will come out too pasty and the texture will be off.

I like to use half water and half chicken broth for a more flavorful polenta. If you don’t have chicken broth on hand, you can use all water.

Cooking Polenta

There are many ways to cook polenta: stovetop, microwave, and oven. I honestly just don’t have the patience to sit and babysit polenta on the stovetop. I love this fool proof oven baked polenta. I added 1 cup of the cornmeal, then slowly whisked in the water and chicken broth until combined. I put in it the oven at 350 degrees for 50 minutes.

After the 50 minutes, carefully remove the polenta, stir in a tablespoon of butter, a 1/4 cup of freshly grated parmesan and some fresh ground black pepper. Use a spatula to scrape up the sides as well. Return to the oven for 10 more minutes, remove, give it one more stir, and taste. Here you can adjust the salt or pepper if desired.

Assembling the dish

To assemble the dish, spread the polenta onto the bottom of the dish, followed by a short rib (or two), then spoon the gravy over the top and top with freshly chopped parsley. I plated with the bone in for presentation, but you can remove the bones prior to plating.

I hope you enjoy these slow cooker short ribs with my foolproof oven baked polenta!

Things you’ll need:

• Slow cooker/crockpot
• Cast iron skillet
• Immersion Blender
• Vegetable peeler
• 2 qt oven safe saucepan
• Measuring cups
• Tongs
• Cheese grater

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More slow cooker recipes!

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• Slow cooker chili
• Slow cooker butternut squash soup
• Slow cooker Mexican shredded chicken

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