Classic Oxtail Stew with Red Wine
Beautifully tender oxtail that falls off the bone, served on a bed of creamy mashed potatoes. This classic oxtail stew made in the slow cooker is one of our absolute favourites.
Oxtail is a relatively underused cut of meat, but after a long slow cook with red wine, it transforms into something incredible. You should be able to get oxtail from all good butchers and it will usually be cut into large pieces.
With this recipe, the work is done upfront in the pan. You need to brown the oxtail, before bringing together most of the other ingredients and reducing the red wine. As always with slow cooking, don’t use an expensive bottle of wine – it’s not worth it!
We highly recommend a low and slow cook for oxtail, for 8 hours. For full instructions, follow the recipe below – with a picture guide for every step.
Slow Cooker Classic Oxtail Stew
Equipment
- Slow Cooker
- Frying Pan
Ingredients
- 1 kg Oxtail pieces
- 2 tbsp Plain flour
- 2 tbsp Olive oil
- 2 Carrots Small, chopped
- 1 stalk Celery
- 1 Onion Diced
- 2 cloves Garlic Minced
- 2 tbsp Tomato puree
- 187 ml Red wine 187m = 1 UK miniature bottle
- 500 ml Beef stock
- pinch Salt
- pinch Pepper
- 5 sprigs Fresh thyme
- Handful Parsley Chopped, to serve
Instructions
- In a bowl, lightly coat the oxtail pieces in flour. Add a pinch of salt and pepper.
- In a large, hot pan with a little oil, brown the oxtail well on all sides. Do this in batches if needed and add more oil if needed.
- Remove the oxtail and lower the temperature. Add onion, garlic, celery, carrot and tomato purée. Stir well and cook for 5 minutes or until slightly softened.
- Add the oxtail back to the pan. Pour in the red wine and reduce by half.
- Add the beef stock and simmer for 5-10 minutes.
- Carefully transfer the contents of the pan to the slow cooker. Add 4-5 sprigs of thyme. Cook for 7-8 hours on low.
- Serve on a bed of creamy mash and top with freshly chopped parsley.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition note
Nutrition calculations only account for the ingredients stated in the slow cooker recipe. Serving suggestions such as rice and potatoes are not included. Remember to account for the nutritional values of anything you choose to accompany the recipe with.
Why not try?
Want a slow cooked beef recipe, but don’t fancy this one? Then take a look at all of our beef recipes here. Or for all our recipes, use our recipe finder to narrow down a recipe choice!
You can also check out our YouTube page for all of our video recipes, including some longer form follow-along recipe videos.
My British mother (WW2 bride) used to make oxtail stew, and I’ve carried the tradition forward. I made it last night from another recipe and was looking for a way to thicken the broth. I like your method of sautéing the veggies in the pan after browning the meat, adding back the meat, then reducing the wine and simmering things in the beef broth. That method picks up much of the flour and fond that would otherwise be left behind, and I’ll certainly incorporate it going forward.
But the real reason I’m writing this comment is to tell you that you left the carrots off of the ingredients list. And shouldn’t there be parsnips in it? 😉