Braised Beef Cheeks - Best Homemade Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What cooking method would you choose when cooking beef cheeks and why? ›

The trick to braised beef cheeks is that braising: slow, patient cooking in a rich broth until all that tough connective tissue melts. You're left with incredibly flavorful meat that's silky and so tender you barely need teeth to eat it.

If your recipe requires it, cut each beef cheek into smaller pieces. If you'd like, you can enhance the flavor and appearance of the beef cheeks by browning them in a skillet. Place the cheek meat in a pot and add enough water, beef broth, or stock to cover the meat.

The cheeks contain frequently used muscles that are necessary for chewing food, which means that they consist of a large amount of collagen. Collagen is the connective tissue within the cheek muscles that can make the meat tough, which is why beef cheeks should be cooked for a very long time through braising.

There Are Many Health Benefits

Beef cheeks are a great lightweight alternative to traditional cuts. Beef cheeks are lower in calories and fat and higher in protein than most popular steaks. Plus, they have more immune-supporting vitamins (vitamin C and B) and 200 percent more iron than traditional cuts.

So what do Beef Cheeks taste like? Especially from naturally raised Grass-fed and Grass-finished cattle, Beef Cheeks, once slow cooked are packed with very rich savory beef flavor notes with a unique super soft mouthfeel that cannot be replicated by any other cut of beef or any other meat for that matter. Truly unique.

Also known as barbacoa meat, beef cheek meat is great in tacos, quesadillas, burritos and other delicious dishes. What is beef cheek meat? Beef cheeks come from the face of the cow, next to the jaw muscle. Our cheek meat produces a wonderful, melt-in-your-mouth bite packed with traditional flavor.

Beef cheeks are generally big in size, so we'd recommend one beef cheek per person. Tip: If your piece has a lot of excess fat or sinew on it, trim this off before you start cooking — it won't cook out and will remain tough.

While beef cheeks are less popular today than they were in the past, they're one of the best cheap cuts of meat for slow cooking. They feature an ultra-beefy flavor, and cooking it in liquid brings it out fully. Another underappreciated cheap cut of meat is the bavette.

Can you overcook beef cheeks? Because beef cheeks are a tough secondary cut with a lot of muscle, they are perfectly suited to slow-cooking, and it would be very hard to overcook them!

There are a few methods, but this is the easiest way: Sprinkle 3/4 tsp baking soda (bi-carbonate soda) on 250g / 8oz sliced economical beef cuts. Toss with fingers, leave for 30 minutes. Rinse, pat off excess water.

Should I brine beef cheeks? ›

For some people, the flavour of beef cheeks can be a bit heady, especially if they're not cooked long enough. If this true for you, then its a good idea to brine the meat first in a salt solution to help reduce the richness. This also has the advantage of seasoning the meat before cooking.

Strong in aroma and with a dark red burgundy color, braised beef cheeks are considered a delicacy for gourmets. Gently pre-cooked over many hours with care according to the AUMAERK method, they melt butter-tender on the tongue.

Each cheek usually weighs around 300-400 grams but during cooking you will find that they shrink to about 200 to 300 grams. If buying for four people we recommend purchasing 1 kilogram of beef cheeks, this will leave you with a cooked weight of approximately 150g of meat per person.

Ox cheek is a popular meat cut in ethnic and French cooking, these days it is also known as beef cheek. Inspiration: This cut is fabulous when slow cook and braised in red wine and perhaps some warm winter aromatics like juniper berries, peppercorns, sprigs of thyme and bay leaves.

OVEN ROAST

Using a low-temperature allows you to slow-roast meat, so it's ideal for preparing large cuts that need plenty of time to tenderize. A higher temperature speeds roasting time, so it is best for cuts of meat that are naturally tender.

Less tender cuts of meat require moist heat cooking methods to help break down the tough connective tissues, add moisture to the meat and cook the meat slowly over a long time. Since more tender cuts of meat do not require moisture and long, slow cooking, they are usually cooked with a dry heat method.

Cook It Slowly

Cooking these cuts of meat slowly, either by braising, stewing or grill roasting, is the best way to get these tasty cuts of meat meltingly tender. Cuts like this come from active muscles in the animal such as the shoulder or the chest area, which get more of a workout (making them quite tough).

Tough cuts are best to cook (blade, brisket, short rib) slowly, by stewing or braising them, in order to add moisture and break down the tough proteins.