These French Onion Short Ribs have all the delicious flavors of a classic French onion soup, but include braised short ribs.
The Ultimate Comfort Food: French Onion Pot Roast
Nothing says cozy, comforting, and downright delicious like a slow-cooked pot roast. But when you infuse it with the deep, rich flavors of French onion soup? You get a dish that’s irresistibly savory, melt-in-your-mouth tender, and perfect for any occasion.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
This French Onion Pot Roast takes all the best elements of a classic pot roast and combines them with the sweet, caramelized depth of French onion soup. The result? A luxurious, flavorful meal that’s as easy as it is impressive.
- Rich and Savory: Slow-cooked beef bathed in a deeply flavorful onion broth.
- Minimal Effort, Maximum Flavor: Let your slow cooker or Dutch oven do the heavy lifting.
- Perfect for Meal Prep: Leftovers taste even better the next day!
Ingredients
- Short Ribs – beef short ribs are best when slow roasted and this recipe is just that.
- Oil – for searing the beef.
- Butter – for sautéing the onions
- Onion – white onions are traditional, but I typically have yellow on hand.
- Seasonings – salt, pepper, garlic
- Wine – white wine is traditional, but red wine is amazing as well.
- Balsamic Vinegar – I love the acidic component it adds.
- Worcestershire Sauce – adds a bit of extra flavor.
- Gruyere Cheese – for serving
- Cornstarch – for thickening the gravy.
How to Make French Onion Pot Roast
- Season short ribs liberally with salt and pepper.
- Add oil to a 5 quart dutch oven and heat over medium heat. Add roast and sear on all sides. Remove seared meat from dutch oven and set aside for later.
- Preheat oven to 300.
- Add butter to dutch oven. Once hot and melted, add the onions, salt and pepper, and allow them to cook down and deeply caramelize for about 20 to 25 minutes, stirring frequently, until the onions become very dark, soft and jammy.
- Add in the garlic and thyme, wine, balsamic, Worcestershire, and allow it to bubble up and reduce for about 30 seconds. Then pour in the beef stock and whisk or vigorously stir to blend in and combine until smooth. Allow the French onion sauce to simmer to 5 minutes.
- Nestle the seared ribs into the onion sauce, spooning onion mixture on top of roast.
- Place into oven and bake for 3-4 hours.
- Remove ribs from oven, remove bones, and pull apart meat with two forks.
- In a small bowl combine cornstarch with 1 tbsp water and pour into roast mixture to thicken the sauce.
- Serve mixture with gnocchi and a sprinkle of shredded gruyere cheese.
Final Thoughts
These French Onion Short Ribs are the ultimate comfort food, perfect for chilly nights, special gatherings, or just a cozy weeknight meal. With minimal effort and maximum flavor, it’s sure to become a new family favorite.
Have you tried this recipe? Let me know in the comments how it turned out for you!
Share Your Experience
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French Onion Short Ribs
Ingredients
- 2-3 lb beef short ribs
- 1 tbsp oil
- 1/4 cup butter
- 3 large white onions thinly sliced
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- 3 cloves garlic minced
- 1/2 cup wine red or white
- 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 2 cups beef broth
- 1 tbsp cornstarch
- 1 cup gruyere cheese shredded
- 2-3 sprigs fresh thyme
Instructions
- Season the short ribs liberally with salt and pepper.
- Add oil to a 5 quart dutch oven and heat over medium heat. Add ribs and sear on all sides. Remove seared meat from dutch oven and set aside for later.
- Preheat oven to 300.
- Add butter to dutch oven. Once hot and melted, add the onions, salt and pepper, and allow them to cook down and deeply caramelize for about 20 to 25 minutes, stirring frequently, until the onions become very dark, soft and jammy.
- Add in the garlic and thyme, wine, Worcestershire, balsamic, and allow it to bubble up and reduce for about 30 seconds. Then pour in the beef stock and whisk or vigorously stir to blend in and combine until smooth. Allow the French onion sauce to simmer to 5 minutes.
- Nestle the seared roast into the onion sauce, spooning onion mixture on top of roast.
- Place into oven and bake for 3-4 hours.
- Remove ribs from oven, remove bones, and pull apart meat with two forks.
- In a small bowl combine cornstarch with 1 tbsp water and pour into roast mixture to thicken the sauce.
- Serve mixture with gnocchi and a sprinkle of shredded gruyere cheese.
This was an incredibly delicious and easy meal to make! The flavor was quite rich and the whole house smelled delicious once it was cooking.
Caramelizing the onions was a little time consuming, I’m a fan of french onion soup so that part was nothing new. I had never cooked short ribs before and was a little concerned going in to it, but they came out perfectly tender and impressed everyone I served it to.
Make sure to give yourself time to get the cornstarch slurry in to thicken it up – I messed up my timing on dinner and we were all too hungry to add that step! Even without it though, it wasn’t too soupy – just didn’t stick to the gnocchi quite as much as I would have liked.
Besides caramelizing the onions, everything else took very little time to prepare/be hands on in the cooking, so it’s also a meal that while very impressive to whoever’s eating it, is also pretty minimal work on your end, especially if you are trying to prepare other things/entertain while the bulk of it’s cooking
Yay! I’m so happy to hear this! One thing that can be helpful if you want minimal day of prep is to prepare the caramelized onions in advanced. Then warm them up before adding in wine and other ingredients.