Braising Steak

What is Braising steak?

Braising steaks usually derive from the hardest working muscle groups of a cow: the skirt, leg, chuck or flank. Because they’re so hardworking, it means the beef they produce is relatively more tough, but also better tasting than most! As a result, you want to make sure you’re cooking your braising steaks slowly and for long durations! These much cheaper cuts, however, deliver some of the richest and most flavoursome beef dishes you’ll have ever tasted – especially when well marbled with fat throughout! You want to make sure you’re cooking braising steaks when diced up into smaller pieces; this will make sure the beef breaks down nicely when being cooked!

Choosing the perfect Braising Steak

Grass or Grain Fed Braising Steak?

Our recommendation is that you look out for braising steaks that have come from cows that were grass-fed. Grass-fed beef has become known as some sort of marketing ploy recently, but beef that is really and truly grass fed is undoubtedly healthier for you, the environment and the cow that produced it — not to mention it’s much tastier too! You can find everything and anything that everyone and anyone ever needed to know about grass fed beef here!

Grass-fed beef has a much darker red colouring than grain-fed beef and has fat trimmings that are more orangey, rather than the pale, creamy white that you're used to finding on your supermarket isles. The orangey fat is there because of the higher level of healthy antioxidant, beta-carotene (Vitamin A) of the beef when compared to grass-fed beef.

Ageing Braising steak

How tender and tasty your Braising steaks depend on the specific ageing of the beef, as well as just whether it’s grass or grain-fed. Like almost every respectable beef specialists, we consider 21 days of ageing to be the ideal duration for the beef to mature. However, our view varies quite significantly to those who argue that all beef should be dry-aged or those who argue the same for wet ageing when it comes to best taste and tenderness. Our extensive experience says that, though it’s very hard to find, you should be looking for rump steaks that have gone through both the dry and wet ageing processes. Why? Check out our definitive guide on beef ageing to learn more!

How to store Braising Steak

When refrigerated and kept in conventional packaging (e.g. plastic tray or bag), braising steaks will likely stay good for 1-2 days, or 6 - 12 months when frozen. However, though it’s getting harder to come by in the UK, if you can find vacuum-packed braising steaks, they’ll stay good for 2 weeks refrigerated, and a grand 1 - 2 years when frozen! It’s really incredible. To learn more about how to vacuum packing braising steaks achieved these results, head over to our informative guide to all things vacuum packed!

How to cook Braising Steak

Though there’s a world of various recipes for you to use, Braising steaks are usually best cooked in a slow cooker! Here’s a little excerpt from our master class on slow cooking braising steak:

1. Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil to a pan
2. Carefully place Braising steaks into the pan
3. Sear the braising steaks for 1 minute without touching them
4. Flip over and do the same for another minute
5. Take the braising steaks off the pan and into a casserole dish with all other, prepared ingredients and mix thoroughly.
6. Cover the casserole dish with aluminium foil.
7. Place the casserole dish into the preheated oven and leave for 3 hours. Alternatively, you could reduce the temperature down to 100 degrees and let it cook overnight!
8. Once the appropriate cooking period has finished, take the braising steak mix out of the oven and remove all foil very carefully so you don’t burn with all released steam.
9. Remove braising steaks from the mixture and add a teaspoon of gravy granules to the remaining mix as a thickener.
10. Serve!

What to serve with Braising Steak

We recommend serving your braising steak with Creamy mash and buttered, steamed broccoli! Yum! Enjoy!