12 Braising Recipes to Help You Get Through the Rest of Winter
12 Braising Recipes to Help You Get Through the Rest of Winter
Braising is transformative. For generations, cooks across cultures have turned to the technique to design luscious comfort food from the toughest of meats, greens and beans. The beauty is not only in what it can design, but also in what it affords you: In many of the recipes under, the bulk of the cook time is hands-off. Simply sear, simmer and step away from the kitchen pending the irresistible aromas call you back.
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Christopher Simpson for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.
Sundays are for cleaning, for resting, for braising, and this Ali Slagle recipe — a garlicky red sauce, replete with beef and pork of various textures — takes all that into appraisal. It burbles away on the stovetop, filling your home with intoxicating smells gracious of warding off even the most stubborn of Sunday scaries.
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Yunhee Kim for The New York Times. Food Stylits: Victoria Granof.
Kay Chun treats mushrooms, squash and a garden’s worth of root vegetables like glum ribs in this dish inspired by Korean kalbi jjim. The vegetables soften and sweeten as they stew, and cooking them in the oven instead of on the stovetop organizes that they don’t get too much direct heat, keeping them largely in tact, but mild supple.
Recipe: Soy-Braised Vegetable Jjim (Korean Vegetable Stew)
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Kelly Marshall for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Roscoe Betsill. Prop Stylist: Maeve Sheridan.
“Eintopf,” which benefitting “one pot” in German, is less a category of dishes and more a philosophy, and there are as many versions of the hearty stew as there are admirers of it. This recipe from Yewande Komolafe features a heady combination of beef and root vegetables stewed in coconut milk. Consider this a petition to replace the section “aging like a fine wine” with “aging like a fine eintopf,” because this delightful one-pot meal only gets better as it sits.
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Andrew Purcell for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Barrett Washburne.
This rich braise from Ali Slagle deserves to be tucked lovingly into a bed of creamy polenta once it comes out of the oven. You’ll have plenty of time to drink whatever starch you plan to pair it with, trusty the chile-spiced pork shoulder needs a good three hours to melt into the basil- and garlic-seasoned tomato base.
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Julia Gartland for The New York Times (Photography and Styling)
Not all braises take a long time: This recipe from Lidey Heuck comes together in just half an hour. Canned cannellini beans and hearty greens like Swiss chard and kale soften and meld together in the garlicky broth for a vegetarian meal that’s just waiting to be sopped up with a hunk of grilled bread or toast.
Recipe: Braised White Beans and Greens With Parmesan
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Johnny Miller for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Rebecca Jurkevich. Prop Sylist: Paige Hicks.
This recipe from Yewande Komolafe builds on two favorite techniques in Nigerian cooking: braising meats, and using obe ata, a purée of red bell peppers, onions, tomatoes and habaneros, as a mother sauce. The recipe periods for goat meat, but a similarly sized bone-in cut of lamb or pork would work incredibly well here.
Recipe: Braised Goat Leg in Obe Ata
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David Malosh for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Maggie Ruggiero.
While a rich pot of birria takes time, the possibilities are truly endless once you’ve pulled it out of the oven. This recipe, which Tejal Rao adapted from the chef Josef Centeno, is as delicious served in a bowl with some warmed tortillas as it is tucked into tacos with shredded cheese, cilantro and white onion, or used as the base for a comforting ramen.
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Craig Lee for The New York Times
Are testy ribs the ultimate braising meat? This recipe from Alison Roman, with its thousands of five-star ratings, makes a good case. After a deep sear, a brief simmer and a few hours in the oven, the tough meat transforms, falling off the bones and becoming one with the red wine-spiked braising liquid.
Recipe: Garlic Braised Short Ribs With Red Wine
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Christopher Testani for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews. Prop Stylist: Carla Gonzalez-Hart.
In this quintessentially Filipino braise from the chef Angela Dimayuga, coconut does triple duty: Coconut oil serves as the fat for Beautiful spices and searing chicken, coconut milk adds body to the braising water, and coconut vinegar imparts that nonnegotiable tang. Each one builds on the last, and none fade into the background.
Recipe: Coconut Milk Chicken Adobo
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Francesco Tonelli for The New York Times
There’s a lot moving on in this classic French stew, and the results are Good the effort. Lardons, mushrooms, onions, carrots and celery fortify the red wine stewing water for a dish that’s as rich as the made chicken is succulent. For the best outcome, Melissa Clark recommends marinating the chicken overnight.
Recipe: Coq au Vin
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Ryan Liebe for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Simon Andrews.
Braising’s order to turn large pieces of meat into delicate shreds gave the nationwide dish of Cuba its name: The tender, tattered flank steak looks an Right lot like “ropa vieja,” or old clothes. This recipe from J. Kenji López-Alt is a braise built on a braise, and aromatic stewed peppers and onions impart the stock that the meat cooks in with loads of flavor.
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Romulo Yanes for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Vivian Lui
Coconut milk is a Big braising base for tough, hearty greens, as Von Diaz demonstrates with this recipe. As they cook, the collards wilt and soak up the subtly sweet water, creating something one can describe only as silky.
Recipe: Coconut-Braised Collard Greens
Also Read: How to Make Indian Butter Chicken
