beef cheek ragu

A decadent and delicious slow cooked beef cheek ragu. Braised in tomatoes and red wine for an absolute cozy crowd pleaser.

Delicious Beef cheek ragu

Salt and pepper

Olive oil

g pancetta

brown onion (finely chopped)

celery (finely chopped)

carrot (finely chopped)

garlic (minced

rosemary leaves (finely chopped)

thyme leaves (finely chopped)

ml red wine

tomatoes

beef stock

lemon

tbsp Butter

Parmesan

Preheat your oven to 160c (320f)

Pat the beef cheeks dry with paper hand towels and season well with salt and pepper all over.

Heat 1tbsp of olive oil in a pan over medium - high heat and sear the cheeks all over until well browned. You might have to do it in a couple of lots or get two pans going to save time. Set aside.

Heat 1 tbsp oil in a heavy bottomed oven proof saucepan and fry the pancetta over medium - high heat for 10 mins until browned, lift out onto a plate with a slotted spoon, leaving the fat behind.

Add the onion, carrot, celery and a good pinch of salt and pepper and cook over medium heat until soft, around 10 minutes. Lower heat if it starts to brown and add more oil if it dries out. After 5 minutes add the garlic and herbs and continue cooking.

Add the wine and let it simmer for a minute or so.

Add the tomatoes and stock and bring to a simmer.

Add the beef cheeks and pancetta in. The beef should be mostly covered by liquid and just bobbing at the surface. Add more stock if you need, it's OK if they are poking out slightly.

Cover and cook in the oven for three hours, turning the beef cheeks over in the liquid half way through. At three hours pull one of them out, it should easily fall apart with two forks. If not then cook for a further 30 mins.

Once the beef is cooked remove the cheeks from the liquid and pull apart with two forks.

With a stick blender blend the liquid until smooth (so the onions, pancetta etc are blended into the sauce) This is optional if you want it a bit chunkier.

Add the pulled meat back in and and season to taste with salt and pepper. I like to add a big squeeze of lemon juice to liven it up and add some zing.

At this point if not using straight away you can take it off the heat, let it come to room temp then place it in the fridge until you want to use it. I always suggest making a meat sauce the day or two before to let the flavour come alive.

Cook your pasta in a pot of well salted boiling water.

Work out how much of the ragu you want to serve (this recipe easily serves 6 so you might not want to serve it all)

Put the ragu in a big fry pan or saucepan that will fit the pasta in too. Bring it up to a gentle simmer.

For every 2 portions add 30g butter and 20g finely grated parmesan and let it melt into the sauce.

Add your cooked pasta straight in with a splash of pasta water and let it gently bubble away for a minute or two.

Serve with freshly grated lemon zest (don't skip this!), a good sprinkling of chopped flat leaf parsley and lots of parmesan.

Enjoy!

To serve:

This is delicious! Made this for dinner tonight and love it! The flavours are delicious. Lots of left overs so will be interested to see how those flavours set over night we as well

Fantastic recipe - thank you for sharing!

This is by far the best ragu recipe I’ve ever come across and recently I’ve tried at least 5! It’s so rich, almost a bit smoky and absolutely delicious. Thank you xx

The recipe was easy to follow and was delicious. I took the advice and made it ahead. I am sure that this improved the flavour too. My dinner guests absolutely enjoyed it.

Sooo good, melt in the mouth and I did not cook the day before so look forward the leftovers being even better!

Loved this recipe! The girls and I did a pasta making class and made parpadelle and I wanted a ragu to go with it. It is deceptively easy, but packs a punch with flavour! The lemon at the end really does take it from good to great. 
I seared the beef cheeks and made the sauce and then left in the slow cooker for 6-8 hrs,(different process to this recipe) the only thing I would say about if you are doing it this way is that it dosent allow the sauce to reduce much and retains a lot of the water, so the sauce was a little "soupier" than I wouldve hoped. Will follow this method and try in the oven next time. 10/10 delicious!!

This was delicious. The combo lemon, zest and parsley was a clincher that elevated the dish to total star. Loved it, thank you for the recipe.

Delicious, absolutely delicious!  The aroma in the house was amazing!

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Top 1 beef cheek ragu recipes from across the web

The most viewed beef cheek ragu recipes by Recipe Cart users, saved from over 20,000 sites. Or, go to our Recipe Search Engineic_arrow_forward_48px

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Delicious Beef cheek ragu

The most viewed beef cheek ragu recipes by Recipe Cart users, saved from over 20,000 sites. Or, go to our Recipe Search Engine