Short Ribs are great to prepare in a crock pot and in my opinion should be eaten a day or two after you prepare them. They are easy to make and a great recipe to clean out your refrigerator as you will see.

We met up with my good friend Barbecue Bob and his wife Bert at a local skating rink with their kids for a birthday party my youngest daughter attended. I had these ribs cooked from Thursday night so I asked if they wanted to come over for dinner. Very impromptu.

The ribs were cooked in the crock pot all Thursday night on the lower setting. In total they cooked for over 9 hours. Maybe too long for some and yes all the meat fell off the bones but it wasn’t over cooked or dried out.

I put the meat into two separate containers figuring I would serve one on Saturday and freeze the other for another night before inviting our friends over. By refrigerating the short ribs over night, it allowed the flavors to meld and the fat to rise to the top so it could be removed easily with a spoon. This is a great way to get rid of most of the fat from your soups, stews and braises.

Ingredients:

The main ingredient to this dish were the short ribs (the long kind called Flanken Style vs the short type called English Style). I knew I would use an onion and 4 or 5 garlic cloves and then found some leftover fennel from another recipe and a container of cremini mushrooms that had to be used or thrown out.

I knew I wanted to some tomatoes that were looking a little shabby and after closer inspection I could only salvage one of them so I used a can of diced tomatoes from the pantry. There was some port wine to deglaze the pan after browning the ribs and 3/4 cup of brown stock. And of course some salt and pepper, to taste.

How to prepare crock pot short ribs

What I love about cooking anything in the crock pot is once you prep the ingredients and get them into the pot you are done. Walk away. You don’t have to do anything until the dish is cooked. In this case, I went to bed and woke up to a kitchen that smelled wonderful.

For this recipe, I browned the ribs, a few at a time, in a fry pan with a little bit of olive oil and butter. Once they were browned, I removed them from the pan and put them into the crock pot. Next time I prepare this, I may put them aside, prep and prepare the rest of the ingredients, put these ingredients into the crock pot and the ribs on top. I’m not sure if it would make a difference but if you happen to know, please comment below.

Next I deglazed the pan with some port wine, let the wine cook down to an essence and then sautéed the onions, garlic and fennel in a little olive oil. I added all this to the crock pot on top of the ribs.

I then sautéed the mushrooms that my daughter de-stemmed, cleaned and sliced in half. These were added to the pot.

With the sautéing done, I added a can of diced tomatoes and 3/4 cup of brown stock to the crock pot and seasoned everything with salt and pepper.

Add the cover and let it cook until the meat is tender and falling off the bone. Do you have to cook it for 9 hours? No, I’m sure it was fine to eat in 5 hours but I was going to bed and didn’t want to fuss with it. You could also make a dish like this in the morning have have it ready by the time you get home for work.

After removing the fat that floated to the top and congealed, we reheated the short ribs and sauce in a large sauce pot on the stove over low heat.

My wife and I served the short ribs in shallow bowls over delicious mashed potatoes and served sautéed spinach on the side. All very simple and easy to make while entertaining. Everyone loved this simple recipe. The meat and sauce had tons of flavor. The mashed potatoes with the sauce were excellent and I think it was the best sautéed spinach I’ve ever prepared. A crusty loaf of French bread doesn’t hurt either.

A great meal especially for cold weather.