Hands-off cooking, great for feeding a crowd
Discover sweet & sticky slow-cooked short ribs for your next gathering and make cooking for a crowd simple and tasty.
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 2 – 3 hours, hands-off slow cooking
- Serves: 4
- Difficulty: easy
- Ideal for: weekend, feeding a crowd
Sweet & Sticky Slow-Cooked Short Ribs: Comfort in a Sauce
There’s something deeply comforting about short ribs slow-cooked until they fall from the bone, drenched in a glaze that’s sticky, sweet, spicy, and just a little bit addictive.
I found the recipe from Kitchen Sanctuary, when I was looking for a tasty sauce to go with beef short-ribs (Nicky’s Kitchen Sanctuary).
I love slow-cooking, especially when cooking for a hungry mob and using 100% grass-fed beef short ribs is a great inexpensive cut to use.
It’s a tough, fatty cut but once slow-cooked, it falls off the bone and is tender as you like.
When done right, you get that perfect balance: deep beefy flavour, edge crisps, and a sauce that clings to every morsel.
It’s the kind of dish you need in your life on a rainy weekend when you want something special but not overly fussy.
If you want some more beef short-rib ideas, visit here.
How to Choose Great Short Ribs (Quality Matters)
Let’s talk about meat.
The success of this dish hinges on starting with great beef, because slow cooking can only do so much — if you begin with mediocre meat, the outcome will suffer.
What to look for:
- Well-marbled ribs: The fat helps with flavour and texture.
- Pasture-raised, grass-fed or regenerative farms: These animals often have better fat quality, richness in flavour, and ethical standards. The methods used to raise them (rotational grazing, improved soil health) also help support ecosystem resilience.
- Local or trusted butcher: Ask where the cattle were raised, how they were fed, and whether any hormones or antibiotics were used.
I am friends with Freybors, an online butcher who only work with farmers who practice regenerative farming.
When you pay attention to provenance, you get more than just better flavour — you support sustainable husbandry, improved animal welfare, and farming practices that restore soil and biodiversity.
Yes, it’s more expensive but if you reduce you meat intake (we all need to do this a little for our health and our planet) then it all evens out in the ‘wallet-wash’.
Sweet & Sticky Slow-Cooked Short Ribs recipe
Here’s a version you can try at home. Feel free to tweak to your taste.
Sweet & Sticky Slow-Cooked Short Ribs
Ingredients
- 4 (grass-fed) beef short ribs
- 2 tsp smoked paprika
- 1/2 tsp white pepper
- 1 thumb sized piece of ginger, finely chopped or grated
- 3 cloves of garlic, peeled
- 1 tbsp rice wine
- 1 tbsp caster sugar
- 1 ltr beef stock
For the sauce
- salt and pepper for seasoning
- 1 thumb sized piece of ginger, minced or grated
- 1 red chilli, finely chopped
- 2 tbsp honey
- 2 tbsp light brown sugar
- 3 tbsp soy sauce
- 1 tsp lemon paste
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 170C fan. In a deep oven proof pan, add all the ingredients from the ribs to the beef stock and over a high heat bring to the boil. Pop the lid on and into the oven for 3 hours or until the meat is tender.* you may need to check on it in the last hour and top up with water if it’s starting to go dry.
- For the sauce: Mix together the ingredients in a small bowl and set to side until the ribs are done.
- Once the ribs are cooked, transfer to a large frying pan and brown the ribs for a minute or two then add 1/2 the sticky sauce mix and coat the meat for another minute or two.
- Pour the remaining sticky sauce of the shot ribs and serve with creamy mash or rice.
Notes
Tips & Variations
- Make ahead: You can do up to the end of step 2 ahead of time. Chill, then reheat and continue the glazing and crisping when ready. (Nicky’s Kitchen Sanctuary)
- Slow cooker version: Instead of oven, use a slow cooker: 4–5 hours on high or 6–7 hours on low, monitoring liquid levels. (Nicky’s Kitchen Sanctuary)
- Adjust sweetness / heat: If you prefer more heat, increase chilli. If you want less sweetness, reduce honey or sugar slightly.
- Use the cooking liquid: Don’t waste it — skim off fat and use for sauces or soups.
Why This Recipe Works (Beyond Technique)
This recipe sings because it combines:
- Low and slow heat to break down connective tissues, making the meat melt in your mouth.
- High heat crisping at the end to bring texture and contrast.
- A multi-layered glaze of sweet, salty, spicy, and umami notes that cling to every bite.
The structure — cook slowly, crisp, glaze — is applied to many great meat recipes (pork belly, Korean beef, etc.). It’s a method that takes advantage of what slow cooking does best (soften and infuse) and what high heat does best (texture and brightness).
Delicious, tasty, inexpensive
That moment when you pierce one of those ribs and the meat falls off the bone, and the burst of sticky, spicy, honeyed goodness… it doesn’t get better than that.
You could also serve these ribs up as a small plate i.e. serve heaped with glistening ribs, perhaps a crisp Asian slaw, or pickled cucumbers. It’s a good thought for a night like Halloween as you wait for the kids to come around.
However, you decide to serve them, above all: use the best meat you can find. The slow cook can forgive a lot — but choice, provenance, ethical farming — those things shine through in every caramelised bite.
Enjoy.
