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Slow Cooker Korean Short Rib Tacos

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Tasty Kitchen Blog: Slow Cooker Korean Short Rib Tacos. Guest post by Natalie Perry of Perry's Plate, recipe submitted by TK member Shelbi Keith of Look Who's Cookin' Now.

 
We recently bought half of an organic, grass-fed cow. That’s, like, a whole freezer full of meat, and my mind is reeling at all of the unfamiliar cuts. (My meat selection growing up was limited to ground beef, steak, roasts, and boneless, skinless chicken breasts. I’ve come a long way!) Beef short ribs is one of those cuts, so I wandered around Tasty Kitchen looking for recipes. When I saw TK member Shelbi Keith’s recipe for Crockpot Korean Short Rib Tacos, I knew it was going to be a winner.

Why?

1. Unfamiliar cuts of meat + slow cooker = deliciousness
2. Tacos make my world go round. I love them almost as much as my children.

Let’s start!

 
 
 
Tasty Kitchen Blog: Slow Cooker Korean Short Rib Tacos. Guest post by Natalie Perry of Perry's Plate, recipe submitted by TK member Shelbi Keith of Look Who's Cookin' Now.

Gather up the ingredients for the sauce that goes in the slow cooker with the short ribs: soy sauce (I used tamari), rice vinegar, sesame oil, crushed red pepper flakes, garlic, ginger, and brown sugar (I reduced it to 1/3 cup).

 
 
 
Tasty Kitchen Blog: Slow Cooker Korean Short Rib Tacos. Guest post by Natalie Perry of Perry's Plate, recipe submitted by TK member Shelbi Keith of Look Who's Cookin' Now.

Peel the garlic and ginger and roughly chop them both. For the ginger, I just cut the skin off with a sharp knife. Yes, you may lose some ginger in the process, but the thought of scraping it off with the back of a spoon makes me crazy. So, I slice it off.

 
 
 
Tasty Kitchen Blog: Slow Cooker Korean Short Rib Tacos. Guest post by Natalie Perry of Perry's Plate, recipe submitted by TK member Shelbi Keith of Look Who's Cookin' Now.

Put the garlic and ginger in a food processor and give it a few pulses until it’s nice and minced. You could also mince it really well with a knife. Or use a Microplane grater.

 
 
 
Tasty Kitchen Blog: Slow Cooker Korean Short Rib Tacos. Guest post by Natalie Perry of Perry's Plate, recipe submitted by TK member Shelbi Keith of Look Who's Cookin' Now.

Transfer to a medium-ish bowl. Preferably one with polka dots.

 
 
 
Tasty Kitchen Blog: Slow Cooker Korean Short Rib Tacos. Guest post by Natalie Perry of Perry's Plate, recipe submitted by TK member Shelbi Keith of Look Who's Cookin' Now.

Add the soy sauce …

 
 
 
Tasty Kitchen Blog: Slow Cooker Korean Short Rib Tacos. Guest post by Natalie Perry of Perry's Plate, recipe submitted by TK member Shelbi Keith of Look Who's Cookin' Now.

And the rest of the ingredients: brown sugar, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and crushed red pepper.

 
 
 
Tasty Kitchen Blog: Slow Cooker Korean Short Rib Tacos. Guest post by Natalie Perry of Perry's Plate, recipe submitted by TK member Shelbi Keith of Look Who's Cookin' Now.

Give it a stir. You can make this sauce ahead and keep it in the fridge for several days.

 
 
 
Tasty Kitchen Blog: Slow Cooker Korean Short Rib Tacos. Guest post by Natalie Perry of Perry's Plate, recipe submitted by TK member Shelbi Keith of Look Who's Cookin' Now.

Unwrap your beef short ribs.

 
 
 
Tasty Kitchen Blog: Slow Cooker Korean Short Rib Tacos. Guest post by Natalie Perry of Perry's Plate, recipe submitted by TK member Shelbi Keith of Look Who's Cookin' Now.

Grab the slow cooker your mom used when you were a kid. (Those are the best kind! The newer ones cook way too hot.) Place the ribs inside. I used a 4-quart slow cooker, and it did wonderfully.

 
 
 
Tasty Kitchen Blog: Slow Cooker Korean Short Rib Tacos. Guest post by Natalie Perry of Perry's Plate, recipe submitted by TK member Shelbi Keith of Look Who's Cookin' Now.

Pour that sauce over the ribs, put the lid on, and walk away.

For about 10-12 hours. It took my ribs 11 hours to loosen up and start falling off the bones. It was a lot longer than I anticipated.

 
 
 
Tasty Kitchen Blog: Slow Cooker Korean Short Rib Tacos. Guest post by Natalie Perry of Perry's Plate, recipe submitted by TK member Shelbi Keith of Look Who's Cookin' Now.

So, instead of having these for dinner, I took the meat off the bones, poured the sauce into a container, and went to bed. That’s why the fat is so hard in the photo above. It was nice, though, to be able to remove so much of it. And it made for a nice, quick Saturday lunch the next day!

 
 
 
Tasty Kitchen Blog: Slow Cooker Korean Short Rib Tacos. Guest post by Natalie Perry of Perry's Plate, recipe submitted by TK member Shelbi Keith of Look Who's Cookin' Now.

I had to show you this. This is what the sauce looked like when I removed the fat, after it had sat in the fridge all night. Sort of like a beef broth-soy sauce gelatin. *shudder*

 
 
 
Tasty Kitchen Blog: Slow Cooker Korean Short Rib Tacos. Guest post by Natalie Perry of Perry's Plate, recipe submitted by TK member Shelbi Keith of Look Who's Cookin' Now.

No need to fear, though. I threw the meat into a skillet with about half of the gelatin-ized sauce and after a few minutes it got all juicy-like. Meat’s ready!

 
 
 
Tasty Kitchen Blog: Slow Cooker Korean Short Rib Tacos. Guest post by Natalie Perry of Perry's Plate, recipe submitted by TK member Shelbi Keith of Look Who's Cookin' Now.

Now let’s make the carrot-cucumber slaw to go on top. Don’t slack on this. This taco needs this slaw.

Peel a carrot and a cucumber. (I made more slaw than the recipe suggested and used every bit.)

 
 
 
Tasty Kitchen Blog: Slow Cooker Korean Short Rib Tacos. Guest post by Natalie Perry of Perry's Plate, recipe submitted by TK member Shelbi Keith of Look Who's Cookin' Now.

Julienne them both and place them in a bowl. You can do it by hand or use a julienne blade on a mandoline slicer. I really, really love my mandoline. It’s a dangerous thing for me to have, given my track record with sharp objects, but it makes thin, beautiful, uniform cuts. Totally worth the risk.

 
 
 
Tasty Kitchen Blog: Slow Cooker Korean Short Rib Tacos. Guest post by Natalie Perry of Perry's Plate, recipe submitted by TK member Shelbi Keith of Look Who's Cookin' Now.

The dressing for the slaw is simple: just rice vinegar, sugar, salt, and some crushed red pepper flakes. Combine them in a bowl …

 
 
 
Tasty Kitchen Blog: Slow Cooker Korean Short Rib Tacos. Guest post by Natalie Perry of Perry's Plate, recipe submitted by TK member Shelbi Keith of Look Who's Cookin' Now.

And pour it over the carrots and cucumber. You can do this a couple of hours ahead of time, but if you do it earlier, the cucumbers might get soggy. Toss it around, and it’s ready!

 
 
 
Tasty Kitchen Blog: Slow Cooker Korean Short Rib Tacos. Guest post by Natalie Perry of Perry's Plate, recipe submitted by TK member Shelbi Keith of Look Who's Cookin' Now.

Grab some tortillas and assemble the tacos, placing some slaw over the shredded meat. Top it with some chopped fresh cilantro and you are in business, my friends.

 
 
 
Tasty Kitchen Blog: Slow Cooker Korean Short Rib Tacos. Guest post by Natalie Perry of Perry's Plate, recipe submitted by TK member Shelbi Keith of Look Who's Cookin' Now.

Thank you, thank you, Shelbi for making these tacos a part of my life! They were fantastic and every solid-food-eating member of my family loved them!

Be sure to check out Shelbi’s Tasty Kitchen Recipe Box and her blog, Look Who’s Cookin’ Now for more great recipes! (Her Lime Grilled Steak with Smoky Cilantro Butter is calling my name.)

 
 

Printable Recipe

Crockpot Korean Short Rib Tacos

See post on Shelbi Keith’s site!
5.00 Mitt(s) 15 Rating(s)15 votes, average: 5.00 out of 515 votes, average: 5.00 out of 515 votes, average: 5.00 out of 515 votes, average: 5.00 out of 515 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5

Prep Time:

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Difficulty: Easy

Servings: 3

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Description

After taking one bite, my husband proclaimed this his new favorite meal!

Ingredients

  • FOR THE KOREAN SHORT RIBS:
  • 5 cloves Garlic
  • 1-½ whole Inches Of Ginger, Peeled
  • ¾ cups Soy Sauce
  • ½ cups Plus 3 Tablespoons Brown Sugar
  • 6 Tablespoons Rice Vinegar
  • 2 Tablespoons Sesame Oil
  • 1 teaspoon Red Pepper Flakes
  • 3 pounds Beef Short Ribs
  • FOR THE CUCUMBER SLAW:
  • ½ whole Hot House Cucumber
  • ½ whole Carrot
  • 4 teaspoons Rice Vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon Sugar
  • 2 pinches Salt
  • 1 pinch Red Pepper Flakes
  • FOR SERVING:
  • 4 whole Tortillas
  • 2 Tablespoons Cilantro For Garnish

Preparation Instructions

For the Korean short ribs:

In a mini food processor, blend garlic and ginger until minced. Mix with soy sauce, brown sugar, rice vinegar, sesame oil, and red pepper flakes.

Place short ribs in crockpot and pour sauce over ribs. Turn crock pot on low heat. Cover with a lid and cook for 6-8 hours.
Remove meat from pot, discard bones. Place in the fridge to chill to touch.

Meanwhile, skim fat off the top of the sauce. Place in a sauce pan and simmer until thickened.

Once meat is cool to touch, pull apart with your fingers. Pour about 1/2 cup of the sauce back into the meat. You may serve the extra sauce on the side or discard it.

For the cucumber slaw:

Peel cucumber and chop into matchsticks. Peel carrot and shred.

Mix carrot and cucumber with rice vinegar, sugar, salt and red pepper flakes.

Serve meat on a warm tortilla topped with slaw and cilantro.

 
 
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Be sure to check out Natalie’s own beautiful food blog, Perrys’ Plate, where you can see her growing collection of lovely recipes. There’s always something new to see there. Go visit now!

 

29 Comments

Comments are closed for this recipe.

Paulina on 11.26.2012

Hello, I made these this Saturday and they were a hit!! I wished I read your post more thoroughly when you said that you used less sugar :S, i used the full amount and found them a tad sweet. I will definitely follow your suggestion next time.

Here is a tip for you: use a potato (veggie) peeler to peel your ginger. It works wonders and you don’t lose almost any of it. Hope it helps!

Susan on 10.18.2012

SO YUMMY! I made these last week using brisket (since it was cheaper than short ribs) and holy moly, it was sooo good! It was also super easy to prep! Thanks for the recipe! I’ll definitely be making them again sometime soon! :)

Cecily on 10.12.2012

I made this recipe earlier this week. Absolutely delicious! I used pork ribs instead of beef, but it was oh-so good. The slaw definitely makes it all perfect.

Martha on 10.9.2012

Did you steal my mom’s crock pot? That has to be the same one she had, that orange/red immediately identifiable :-)

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    Natalie | Perry's Plate on 10.12.2012

    That one was a classic, I think! I found it at the thrift store for $8 bucks, and the first time pulled it out my husband goes, “Hey, my mom had that crock pot!” Mine did, too :)

Sarah C. on 10.9.2012

Just an FYI- not sure why but I can’t pin any of the beautiful pictures when I was trying to save this blog/recipe to my pinterest food board. Haven’t had this issue other times on this site. Thanks for sharing the recipe!

Sam on 10.9.2012

Did you trim the fat off your short ribs? We also have a freezer full of beef and I find this cut to be very fatty. Thanks

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    Natalie | Perry's Plate on 10.9.2012

    Hi Sam,

    No, I didn’t. To be honest, I didn’t see much fat on them (grass-fed beef is usually leaner). I imagine most of the fat from these came from inside the bones. You can remove a lot of fat by letting the juices sit in the fridge overnight (like the photo in the post). Making these into tacos and having a fresh slaw on top lightens things up as well. Good luck!

Sarah on 10.8.2012

being of Korean descent, and having grown up eating the BEST Korean BBQ around (thanks Mom for feeding me as I was growing up and continuing to feed me as an adult), I would recommend that you also try using applesauce or grated Asian pear and less sugar in your marinade. The apple works as a natural tenderizer (especially if you’re not going to crock pot it and your just going to use this as a marinade for short ribs). I have to admit the vinegar in the marinade left me scratching my head, but then again my mom never cooked korean bbq in a crock pot.

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    Natalie | Perry's Plate on 10.9.2012

    Thanks for the suggestion! I forgot to mention in the post, but I actually used about half the amount of sugar as the recipe called for. I don’t like my meat super-sweet. I also haven’t eaten much Korean BBQ, so I don’t know how authentic this tastes. All I know is that I really loved it.

Alice on 10.8.2012

YUM! Looks like a face off for Korean short rib tacos or beer crock pot chicken. May the best win.

Travis Cotton on 10.8.2012

Beef short ribs are awesome but it takes forever to get them tender.

Kay on 10.8.2012

Thanks for highlighting this recipe, Natalie! Being a native Korean, anytime Korean cuisine is featured, it’s a great delight! :)

Dana on 10.7.2012

I use a slow cooker as often as possible. You HAVE to try the slow cooker liners! They make clean-up a breeze!

Laura Schmidt on 10.7.2012

I can’t wait to try this recipe! It looks fantastic. What I really want to know,though, is where did you get those adorable polkadot bowls?? LOVE them!

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    Natalie | Perry's Plate on 10.8.2012

    Aren’t they cute? I have an orange one, too :) I found them at a wholesale home decor store called “Tai Pan” in Utah.

angryparsnip on 10.6.2012

Love this recipe. and will try it.
If you add in a Japanese or Korean pear or some pear juice your will get that hint sweetness of my favorite Bulgogi.
In fact if you have some ribs left, even though they are not cut like Korean ribs, you can still marinade them and then barbecue them. So tasty and different from typical American barbeque.
Thanks for the recipe
cheers, parsnip

Linda P on 10.5.2012

I only recently learned this, so I thought I’d share: There is a difference between a “slow-cooker” and a “Crock Pot.” Of course I knew that Crock Pot was a brand name, but I didn’t know that a slow cooker has a higher wattage than a Crock Pot, thus it cooks hotter/faster.

Annette on 10.5.2012

Hi Natalie! Thank you so much for sharing this recipe. I live in AZ and cannot wait for the 3-digit days to move on out and make some delicious fall recipes. This looks and sounds so fabulous and I cannot wait to try it; what a bonus being a crockpot recipe too…love these. It looks like you used boneless short ribs, does it matter, do you think? I will have to see what I can find here in AZ. Thanks again and happy cooking.

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    Natalie | Perry's Plate on 10.5.2012

    I can’t wait for this weather to pass for you, too! I actually used bone-in short ribs, but I don’t think it would matter which you used. It might decrease the cooking time with boneless ribs. Happy cooking to you, too!

laura @ glutton for nourishment on 10.5.2012

that gelatinous sauce the next day means it’s gooooood! nothing to make you shudder at all. ;) these sound delicious.

Connie on 10.5.2012

This looks like a fun and delicious twist to the traditional taco. Thanks for posting the recipe. Did you use corn or flour tortillas?

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    Natalie | Perry's Plate on 10.5.2012

    Connie, I used a wheat-corn blend, but they’re the size of corn tortillas. And you’re welcome!

deb m on 10.5.2012

After growing up near a beef finishing/processing plant I can’t bring myself to swallow grain finished beef. We buy our beef from a local farmer who raises 100% grass fed, organic beef. It’s flavorful and lean. You couldn’t pay me to eat the grain finished stuff. We’re picking up our annual beef order tomorrow, can’t wait!

Thanks for the short rib taco recipe, now I know what to do with the pack of short ribs I have left from last year’s order!

MaryfromSoDak on 10.5.2012

Being from the midwest I would have to comment on your organic grass fed beef. Usually, quality beef is finished off with a protein-fed regimine such as corn or protein pellets to boost the protein which in turn gives better quality to the finished product. The meat will be better marbled and have a better texture and more tender. And of course, the longer you let the carcuss hang the better. Around here it’s 2 weeks to 28 days. You lose a little more in trim, but the end product is so worth it.

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    Natalie | Perry's Plate on 10.5.2012

    Hi Mary. I totally understand the reasoning behind grain-finished beef, but cows were not intended to eat corn or protein pellets. It may increase the marbling and improve the flavor, but it changes the chemistry in the cow, resulting in lower omega-3 fatty acids in the meat, among other undesirables. I’d rather have my meat as nature intended. I’ve eaten both types of meat, and organic, grass-fed can be just as tender and flavorful as grain-finished, as it has just as much to do with HOW you cook and flavor the meat.

Allyn on 10.5.2012

This is so similar to a recipe I make for Korean beef tacos, though I just use a beef roast (http://lollingabout.wordpress.com/2011/11/11/foodie-friday-korean-beef-tacos/). They make your house smell AMAZING. My family could smell it as they came down the driveway.