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Why You’ll Love My Recipe
This surprisingly easy recipe will give you a whole new view on an underappreciated cut of meat. With the right tools and some patience, you’ll have tender, falling apart beef with all of the umami flavours of a perfect stew!
Why not learn more about Worcestershire Sauce for this recipe? Or maybe learn How To Cook a Top Sirloin Roast (and Sirloin Tip) instead? Serve these beef cheeks over some Buttery Garlic Mashed Potatoes or Mushroom Rice for a delicious dinner.
Karlynn’s Recipe Notes
- Skill Level: This is a very easy recipe, especially if you have the time to get this going in a slow cooker and go on about your day.
- Total Time: Depending whether you decide on the stove top method or slow cooker method, this recipe will take you approximately 3 hours to 8.5 hours. The vast majority of that is cooking time, not active prep. If you have a pressure cooker, you can reduce that cooking time to 75 minutes.
- Variations: If you’d prefer not to use wine in your sauce, you can likely find a beef broth with red wine flavours added. Or just use regular beef broth. Add some hot peppers, chili powder, chili flakes, or your favourite hot sauce if you’d like some heat in this recipe.
- Tools Needed: For this recipe, you’ll need a large bowl, a medium bowl, a large braising pan, slow cooker or pressure cooker, and a whisk. You’ll also need a cutting board and a sharp knife.
What You’ll Need For Ingredients
Beef: This recipe is ideal for breaking down the tougher cuts of beef into tender, falling apart morsels. If you can’t find beef cheeks, you could also try using short ribs. You could even use stewing beef, though you might not get the same level of rich, meaty flavour.
Sauce: The sauce for this recipe resembles the beginnings of a beef stew, using beef broth, red wine, tomato sauce, and Worcestershire sauce. The seasonings are also ones you’d likely put in a stew. Rosemary, thyme, and bay leaves are the perfect complements for beef, especially cuts that require longer cook times.
Vegetables: While the beef is the star component of this recipe, the vegetables add volume and balance to the dish. Carrots, celery, mushrooms, and onions all contribute to the stew-like flavours and textures that make these beef cheeks perfect for serving over mashed potatoes.
How To Make Beef Cheeks
This is a brief overview of the recipe. The full list of ingredients and step-by-step instructions are in the recipe card below.
Stove Top Method
- Remove membrane from beef cheeks.
- Whisk flour and seasonings together in a bowl. Add beef and toss until well coated.
- In a large pan over medium heat, sauté the beef cheeks in oil until browned. Remove meat from pan and set aside.
- Add onions to pan and sauté until soft. Add garlic.
- Whisk together sauce ingredients and pour into pan. Add vegetables and beef cheeks. Put a lid on the pan and simmer on medium-low for 2 to 2.5 hours, turning the meat over once.
- Serve tender, falling apart meat over mashed potatoes.
Slow Cooker Method
- Follow the first three steps from the stove top method above, and then place the beef into the slow cooker. Add vegetables to slow cooker with the beef.
- Sauté onions and garlic in pan. Whisk together sauce ingredients and add to pan. Pour sauce into slow cooker, over the beef and vegetables.
- Cover and cook on low for 8 hours, or until the beef is falling apart. Serve over mashed potatoes.
Karlynn’s Tips and Tricks for Making Beef Cheeks
Make it Quicker: If you haven’t got the time or patience to wait hours for these beef cheeks to be ready, pull out that trusty pressure cooker. Follow all of the slow cooker instructions but put everything into the pressure cooker instead. Set it for 75 minutes and you should end up with tender beef in time for dinner.
Prepare the Beef: Don’t forget to remove the tough membrane (like you would for the silver skin on the back of a rack of ribs) and dangling chunks of fat or excess sinew attached to the beef cheeks. The cooking method used in this recipe will break down the meat considerably, but you still need to get those extra bits off to ensure the most tender beef possible.
Storage Instructions
Fridge: You can keep leftovers in a sealed container in the fridge for 4-5 days.
Freezer: You can put the cooled leftovers in a freezer safe bag or container and freeze them for several months.
More Delicious Beef Recipes
Looking for more easy Beef recipes?
Try this Herb and Garlic Stuffed Eye of Round Roast Recipe or a Classic 3 Ingredient Slow Cooker Pot Roast for your next Sunday dinner.
Why not make some classic Corned Beef and Cabbage for St. Patrick’s Day? Or use some leftover beef for a Beef Barley Soup?
There you go, friends. The perfect way to turn tough beef cheeks into a scrumptious and tender meal. Try this recipe and let me know how it turns out for you.
Happy Cooking!
Karlynn
Beef Cheeks
Ingredients
- 2 pounds beef cheeks, 4 large
- ½ cup flour
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 medium medium white or yellow onion diced
- 2 tablespoons minced garlic
Sauce Ingredients
- 2 cups beef broth
- ¼ cup red wine
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire Sauce
- 1 tablespoon tomato paste
- ½ teaspoon dried rosemary
- ½ teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 bay leaf
Vegetables
- 2 large carrots washed and diced
- 2 stalks stalks celery washed and diced
- 5 large large white mushrooms sliced
- fresh parsley to garnish if desired
Instructions
Stove Top
- Remove any tough membranes from the outside of the beef cheek.
- Whisk together the flour, salt and pepper. Place the beef in the flour mixture and toss until the beef is coated. Shake off the excess.
- In a large braising pan, saute the beef cheeks in oil over medium heat until browned. Remove and place on a plate.
- Add in the onions and saute until they are softened, then add the garlic and saute until fragrant. If needed add in more olive oil to fry the onions.
- Whisk together the sauce ingredients then pour into the pan, deglazing the bottom by scraping the browned bits off.
- Add in the vegetables, then place the beef cheeks into the pan, nestling between the vegetables.
- Place the lid on top of the pan and simmer on medium-low for 2- 21/2 hours, turning the beef cheeks once, until the cheeks are tender and fall apart.
- Serve over mashed potatoes.
Oven Cooking
- Follow all steps for stove top then cook at 350°F for 2-3 hours, until the beef cheeks are tender.
- Serve over mashed potatoes.
Slow Cooker
- Remove any tough membranes from the outside of the beef cheek.
- Whisk together the flour, salt and pepper. Place the beef in the flour mixture and toss until the beef is coated. Shake off the excess.
- In a large braising pan, saute the beef cheeks in oil over medium heat until browned. Remove and place the cheeks into your slow cooker.
- Add the vegetables into the slow cooker.
- Add in the onions and saute until they are softened, then add the garlic and saute until fragrant. If needed add in more olive oil to fry the onions.
- Whisk together the sauce ingredients then pour into the pan, deglazing the bottom by scraping the browned bits off.
- Pour over the beef and vegetables in the slow cooker.
- Place the lid on top and cook for 8 hours on LOW until the beef is tender and falls apart. Do not cook on high.
- Serve over mashed potatoes.
Instant Pot
- Follow all slow cooker directions, but place into your Instant Pot and cook on high pressure for 75 minutes.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Lisa says
NO, I AM NOT EATING THAT. HARD PASS.
Dayle says
Why are you screaming ma’am? Nobody is saying you have to like every single recipe you come across. It’s okay to just, you know, MOVE ON.