Short Rib Pappardelle
Braised short ribs in red wine over fresh pappardelle — Sunday dinner at its finest.
Prep: 20 min · Cook: 3 hrs · Total: 3 hrs 20 min · Serves: 4 · Difficulty: Hard · Rating: 5/5 (504 reviews)
INSPIRED BY
The Italian-American Sunday supper
The Italian-American Sunday supper tradition — low and slow braised meat over wide ribbons of pasta, the kind of dish that brings a family to the table.
Story
There's a table I keep coming back to in my memory, a long one with a vinyl cloth, in the kind of Italian-American place where the Sunday gravy has been going since before church let out and the whole room smells like braised beef and garlic by one o'clock. Wide ribbons of pappardelle, a tangle of shredded short rib, a slick of sauce that's more meat than tomato. That's the dish. It isn't fancy. It's just patient. The error I see constantly is people treating this like a quick ragù. They brown the meat, dump in the wine and tomatoes, and simmer for forty-five minutes, then wonder why the short rib is tough and stringy. Short rib is full of collagen, and collagen needs two and a half to three hours of low, covered heat to melt into gelatin. Rush it and the meat seizes. Give it the time and it falls off the bone into the sauce on its own. Two technique points carry the whole thing. First, sear the ribs hard, all sides, until they're truly mahogany, because that fond on the bottom of the pot is where the flavor lives. Second, reduce the wine by half before the tomatoes go in; raw wine tastes sour and thin, reduced wine tastes like depth. Skim the fat off the top before you toss the pasta, or the sauce turns greasy. Reserve some pasta water and finish the noodles in the sauce, not on the plate. The starch in that water binds everything into one glossy thing instead of meat sitting in a puddle next to noodles. This is a dish that rewards a free afternoon and punishes impatience. Plan your Sunday around it. Use bone-in short ribs if you can find them, because the bones add body and gelatin to the sauce that boneless can't match. Sweat the soffritto, the onion, carrot, and celery, in the rendered beef fat until it's soft and sweet, eight minutes at least, before the wine goes in; rushing the vegetables leaves them raw and the sauce tastes thin and harsh. Finish with Parmesan grated over the top, and a little of the cheese rind dropped into the braise earlier is an old trick worth doing. The sauce should cling to the pappardelle, not sit beneath it in a pool. If it's loose, reduce it before the noodles go in.
By Theo
Ingredients
- 3 lbs bone-in short ribs
- 1 bottle dry red wine
- 1 can San Marzano tomatoes (28oz)
- 2 cups beef broth
- 1 onion, diced
- 2 carrots, diced
- 2 stalks celery, diced
- 6 cloves garlic
- 1 lb pappardelle pasta
- Fresh rosemary, thyme; Parmesan for serving
Instructions
- Season short ribs generously with salt and pepper. Sear in a hot Dutch oven on all sides until deeply browned, about 3 minutes per side. Remove.
- In the same pot, sauté onion, carrots, and celery until soft, about 8 minutes. Add garlic.
- Deglaze with red wine, scraping up the fond. Reduce by half.
- Add tomatoes and beef broth. Nestle short ribs back in. Add herb sprigs.
- Cover and braise in a 325°F oven for 2.5-3 hours until meat falls off the bone.
- Shred meat, discard bones. Reduce sauce if needed. Toss with cooked pappardelle and finish with Parmesan.
Chef Tips
- Don't skip searing the short ribs — that Maillard reaction is where 50% of the flavor lives. Use a full-bodied wine you'd actually drink. The sauce should coat the back of a spoon when it's ready.
Cook's Notes
- **Short rib selection:** Bone-in short ribs add more gelatin and flavor to the braise than boneless. Remove the bones after braising and shred the meat.
- **Wine choice:** A full-bodied red wine (Barolo, Cabernet Sauvignon, or Chianti) holds up to the 4-hour braise. Avoid cooking wine — it's low quality and high sodium.
- **Make-ahead:** Short rib ragu is better the next day. Braise, cool, refrigerate overnight, skim the fat cap off the cold surface, then reheat and finish with pasta.
- **Storage:** Ragu: 4 days refrigerated, 3 months frozen. Freeze in portion-sized containers.
- **Pasta choice:** Pappardelle is traditional — the wide ribbons hold the chunky braised meat. Fresh pappardelle (store-bought) is significantly better than dried for this dish.
- **Common mistake:** Not reducing the braising liquid before tossing with pasta. The liquid needs to reduce by half after the meat is removed to concentrate into a proper sauce. Thin braising liquid dilutes the pasta and ends up watery.
- **Doneness cue:** The short ribs are done when the meat pulls away from the bone with no resistance and shreds between two forks. At 325°F, bone-in short ribs take 3.5-4 hours minimum.