Red Wine Braised Brisket (Great for Holidays!)
Don't let brisket intimidate you. Cooking it low and slow in a rich, savory red wine bath for several hours transforms the tough, fatty cut of beef into something so tender and juicy you hardly need a knife to cut it. Serves 6-8.
Ingredients
- 6 lb brisket flat
- 2 large carrots (peeled and cut into 3" chunks)
- 3 large celery stalks (cut into 3" chunks)
- 2 large yellow onions (peeled and cut into quarters)
- 1 bulb garlic (cut in half)
- ¼ cup tomato paste
- 2 sprigs fresh rosemary
- 8-10 sprigs fresh thyme
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 cup water
- ⅛ cup beef bouillon paste
- 750 mL dry red wine (one standard sized bottle)
- 2 tablespoons diamond crystal kosher salt (divided)
- 2 teaspoons black pepper (divided)
- ¼ cup vegetable oil (or olive oil)
Instructions
- Prep and season. Trim the brisket if needed. Season each side with 1 tablespoon of salt and 1 teaspoon of black pepper. Place on a sheet pan and set aside. This step can be done the night before; cover the brisket loosely with foil and refrigerate overnight.
- Preheat the oven to 300°F. Place a rack in the top most position and lower middle position. Hang your oven thermometer from the top rack in the center of the oven. Adjust the oven temperature as needed until the oven thermometer reads 300F.
- Mise en place. Prepare the vegetables and herbs. Peel and cut the carrots, chop the onions and celery, get out the herbs, measure out the bouillon, tomato paste, water, and uncork the wine bottle. Make sure you have an oven mitt handy.
- Sear. Place the roasting pan across 2 of your stove top burners over medium heat. Drizzle 2-3 tablespoons of vegetable oil in the bottom of the pan, enough to coat. Let the oil warm up until shimmering, then carefully sear the brisket on both sides, about 3-4 minutes per side. If you’re feeling ambitious and have someone to help hold the pan in place, use two tongs to carefully lift the brisket and hold it upright to brown the edges. Remove the brisket from the roasting pan back to the sheet pan to rest.
- Vegetables. To the same roasting pan, add another drizzle of oil. Then add the chopped carrots, onions, and celery. Stir frequently until the veggies soften and the onions are starting to become translucent, about 5-7 minutes.
- Tomato paste and deglazing. Add the tomato paste and beef bouillon paste and stir well until the vegetables are coated with it and it starts to brown and caramelize, about 3-5 minutes. Deglaze the pan by adding a cup of water, using the edge of your spatula to scrape any browned bits (the fond) off the bottom of the pan.
- Aromatics and wine. Add the garlic and whole herbs. Stir to submerge them in the broth. Push the vegetables and herbs to the edges of the pan. Put the brisket back in the roasting pan and pour the whole bottle of wine over it. Cover with aluminum foil.
- Braise. Place the roasting pan in the center of the oven. Cook the brisket covered, until the temperature reaches 195-200°F internally, approximately 3-4 hours.
- Resting. Take the whole pan out of the oven and let it rest, covered, for 30 minutes. Then, remove the brisket from the pan, leaving the liquid and vegetables behind.
- Strain and reduce. Use tongs to remove the biggest chunks of vegetables from the braising liquid. Pour the liquid through a strainer into a sauce pot. Let stand for 2-3 minutes so the fat rises to the top of the pot. Use a spoon to skim as much of the fat as you can. Place the pot on the stovetop and bring it to a boil. Reduce to a low boil and maintain it for 10-15 minutes.
- Slice. While the liquid is reducing, carefully slice the brisket into ¼” strips. Return the brisket to the roasting pan. Taste the reduced braising liquid and add ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper if it needs it. Then pour the liquid over the brisket into the roasting pan.
- Keep warm or serve. Serve immediately or cover with aluminum foil and let rest in a 200°F oven to keep warm. Thirty minutes before serving, increase the temperature to 300°F. After transferring the brisket to a serving platter, pour the liquid into a gravy boat or bowl for people to spoon over their brisket.
TIP: Make sure you have an oven mitt nearby. Not all roasting pans have heat-safe handles the way skillets do, and you don't want to accidentally grab the edge of the hot pan with a bare hand. If you have a second person around who can hold the pan in place while you flip the brisket, please ask them to help!
Cook time can vary based on how cold the brisket was when it went into the oven and how well your roasting pan conducts or retains heat. The most important thing is that the brisket has reached the correct internal temperature. The timing is an only an estimate, think of it as a way for you to know when to start checking for doneness.
The braised carrots are incredibly tasty — treat yourself to some nibbles for your hard work, or serve them on the side!
RECIPE NOTES
- Alcohol free: If you don’t want to cook with wine, you can use beef stock instead. You will still want to use beef Better Than Bouillon paste with the vegetables in addition to the beef stock.
- WARNING: Do NOT use a disposable aluminum roasting pan for this recipe. They are not designed to be used on the stovetop and will buckle under the weight of the brisket.
- Prep ahead: You can dry and season the raw brisket with salt and pepper the night before you braise it if you want. Leave it, loosely covered, in the fridge overnight.
- Storage: Braised brisket stores nicely in the fridge for up to 7 days. Store braised brisket tightly covered in the braising liquid to reheat the whole dish in the oven at 300F. Or store the brisket slices and braising liquid in separate containers to reheat separately. If I'm not making this to serve a crowd, I usually do the latter and reheat a few slices at a time in the microwave. The meat is so tender and juicy the microwave actually works really well for it! The Kitchn has a great guide to freezing braised brisket, which involves freezing the slices individually on a sheet pan so you can easily reheat just what you need.
- Scaling up or down: To scale this six-pound braised brisket recipe up or down, you don't need to make too many changes unless the brisket is significantly larger or smaller. Most of the ingredients are aromatics that get strained out anyway, so scaling is mostly about adjusting the cook time. A good rule of thumb is to assume 20-40 minutes cook time per pound of brisket.
- For a 3-pound brisket, I like to use a 4-quart cast iron braising pan instead of a large roasting pan. I usually use one fewer onion and carrot, but I still use the same amount of wine.
- For a 10-12 pound brisket, I usually add one or two extra onions and carrots and twice as much wine (a 1.5 liter bottle).