Braised Short Ribs with Honey, Soy and Orange

These braised short ribs are cooked low and slow in a delectable sauce flavored with soy, honey, orange and Chinese 5-spice powder. A hearty cold-weather recipe!

As a cooking couple, we’re aware of a lot of the clichés that link food with romance. The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. The couple that braises together…stayses together. You know, the classics.

It is true that if you can work together and communicate well in the kitchen, if you can appreciate each other’s skills and enjoy your combined successes, and if you can laugh at and learn from your culinary failures, your relationship probably has a pretty solid footing. It helps to have a recipe like this braised short ribs dish. There are a few steps to it, but nothing is time-critical, so you can hang out in the kitchen and talk about how your day was while you do the prep and get the ribs in the oven or slow cooker.

Note: This recipe is part of our on-going series with Serious Eats. You can also find this recipe, and other great ones, on their site.

Short ribs are a beef cut that requires a long, slow cooking process. That’s because the tough, collagen-rich connective tissue between the ribs needs to break down into tender gelatin. They are not a one-minute steak, but they do reheat well. That means you can get the prep done on a weekend morning, go off and enjoy your day, and come back to a nearly complete dinner.

When shopping, look for English-style ribs, which are cut parallel to the bone (resulting in one bone per piece), as opposed to flanken-style, which are cut across the bone, with three or four short sections of bone in each piece.

A lot of flavor combinations work well with beef, and one of our favorites is a Chinese-style mixture of soy, orange, and five-spice powder, which typically contains Sichuan pepper, star anise, cloves, fennel, and cinnamon. This imparts a balanced savoriness with warmth and sweetness, along with a deep and complex aroma.

The first step in the recipe is to dry, season, and sear the ribs, giving them a fantastic brown crust that will enhance the flavor of the final dish. Since we use a Dutch oven for the braise, that’s what we used for this step, too, although you could use a cast iron or carbon steel skillet if you plan to use a slow cooker later. Just don’t crowd the pan, since you want to sear the meat, not steam it.

After the meat is browned, set it aside and sauté some onions, ginger, garlic, and spices until the onions are softened and the spices are toasted, which will take just a few minutes. After that, all the other braise ingredients go into the pot, including hoisin sauce, Chinese Shaoxing wine, orange juice and zest, rice wine vinegar, honey, chili sauce, soy sauce, and chicken stock. Then the ribs can go back in as well, ready for the long braise.

The oven method should have your braised short ribs ready in around three hours—check in at around two and a half hours to see how tender the beef is. You want it to be fork-tender and easily separable from the bones, but not completely falling apart. We like serving this over mashed potatoes, with a side of roasted carrots and shredded red and Napa cabbage, but it would also work well with polenta, or a grain such as farro or barley.

The recipe itself serves four to six, so, if you’re making a dinner for two, you’re definitely going to have leftovers, which is a good thing. There’s nothing wrong with reheating the ribs and sauce again, but we love to pull the meat off the bones, shred it, and fold it into tacos with shredded cabbage and pickled onions.

The only downside to making these ribs for Valentine’s Day? As good as they could be for your relationship, there’s a small chance you’ll end up falling harder for the ribs.

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Braised Short Ribs with Honey, Soy and Orange

Prep Time30 minutes mins

Cook Time3 hours hrs

Total Time3 hours hrs 30 minutes mins

Author: Emily Clifton - Nerds with Knives

Ingredients

• 5 pounds beef short ribs cut English style
• Coarse kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper
• 2 tablespoons neutral oil
• 1 large onion chopped (1 1/2 cups)
• 3 tablespoons ginger grated
• 6 large garlic cloves peeled, smashed, and roughly chopped
• 1 tablespoon five-spice powder
• Zest of 2 oranges one in wide strips, one finely grated
• 1/2 cup orange juice 2 medium oranges, divided
• 1 ⁄2 cup Shaoxing rice wine or dry sherry
• 1 cup low sodium soy sauce
• 1/4 cup unseasoned rice wine vinegar
• 1/2 cup honey
• 2 tablespoons sambal or chili garlic sauce
• 1/4 cup hoisin sauce
• 3 1/2 cups low sodium chicken broth or water
• 1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch mixed with 1 1/2 tablespoons cold water
• 3 scallions thinly sliced, for garnish

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350°F (or plug in your slow cooker).
• Season short ribs both sides with a little salt and more generously with pepper. Preheat a dutch oven on medium-high. Add oil and when shimmering, add short ribs in a single layer (don’t crowd pan, work in batches, if necessary). Brown well on all sides and remove ribs to a plate. When all ribs are browned, pour off all but 2 tablespoons fat. Add onion, ginger, garlic and 5-spice powder and cook until slightly softened and fragrant, 4-5 minutes.
• Add strips of orange zest and 1/4 cup orange juice, rice wine (or sherry), soy sauce, rice vinegar, honey, chili paste, hoisin and broth. Stir to combine. Add ribs back in to Dutch oven (or add ribs and liquid into a slow cooker).
• If using a slow cooker: Set the slow cooker to high and cook until the meat is tender and falls from the bones, 6-8 hours.
• If using Dutch oven: Bring to a boil, cover, and transfer to pre-heated oven. Cook until short ribs are tender, about 3 hours. Check periodically during the cooking process and add more stock (or water), if needed. During the last 20 minutes of cooking, remove the lid to allow the sauce to reduce. The meat should be very tender but not completely falling apart.
• When meat is cooked, remove ribs and keep warm in a serving dish. Strain braising juices into a fat separator (or spoon off as much fat as possible) then pour strained, de-fatted sauce back into pot. Stir in last 1/4 cup orange juice. You should have about 3 cups. Bring to a simmer, then whisk in just enough cornstarch mixture to slightly thicken sauce (may not need the whole amount). Return the short ribs and the reduced sauce to the Dutch oven, coating the short ribs well with the sauce. Serve with a sprinkle of scallions and grated orange zest over each portion.

Notes

For pressure cookers: Cook on high pressure for 35 minutes: Lock pressure-cooker lid in place and bring to high pressure over medium-high heat. As soon as pot reaches high pressure, reduce heat to medium-low and cook for 35 minutes, adjusting heat as needed to maintain high pressure. Remove pot from heat and allow pressure to release naturally for 15 minutes. Quick release any remaining pressure, then carefully remove lid, allowing steam to escape away from you.

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