Korean braised beef, a home-style cousin of galbi jjim, is built for frugal cooking. The sauce is soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic, ginger and a grated pear, and the cut it wants is the one nobody pays a premium for. Chuck roast is full of connective tissue that would be tough in a hot pan, but over a long, low braise it melts into gelatin and gives the sauce a body you cannot buy in a bottle. Grating an apple or pear into the pot is the traditional trick, because the fruit enzymes tenderize the meat while the sugars help the sauce reduce to a lacquer at the end.
Searing the beef before it goes into the slow cooker costs one extra pan and about ten minutes, and it is the difference between a braise that tastes deep and one that tastes boiled. A slow cooker never gets hot enough to brown anything. Everything the sauce gains from that browning has to happen in a skillet first, which is also why the pan gets deglazed with broth and the whole thing scraped into the pot.
The vegetables go in for the last two hours rather than the first eight. Carrots and potatoes cooked for a full day give up their texture entirely, while two hours leaves them tender and intact. The sauce gets thickened at the very end with a cornstarch slurry, which is what turns eight hours of thin liquid into something that clings to rice.
Slow Cooker Korean Braised Beef
Equipment
- Slow cooker 6-quart or larger
Ingredients
- 3 lbs boneless beef chuck roast cut into 2-inch chunks
- 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1/2 cup soy sauce
- 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/4 cup rice vinegar
- 1 Asian pear or Bosc pear peeled and grated
- 1 small onion grated
- 8 cloves garlic minced
- 2 tablespoons fresh ginger minced
- 1 tablespoon toasted sesame oil
- 1 cup low-sodium beef broth
- 1 tablespoon gochujang optional
- 4 medium carrots cut into 2-inch chunks
- 1 pound Yukon gold potatoes cut into 2-inch chunks
- 2 tablespoons cornstarch mixed with 2 tablespoons cold water
- 4 green onions sliced
- 1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
Instructions
- Pat the beef chunks dry and season with salt and pepper. Heat the oil in a large skillet over high heat and sear the beef in two batches, 2-3 minutes per side, until deeply browned.
- Transfer the seared beef to the slow cooker.
- Add 1/2 cup of the beef broth to the hot skillet and scrape up every browned bit from the bottom. Pour this over the beef.
- Whisk together the soy sauce, brown sugar, rice vinegar, grated pear, grated onion, garlic, ginger, sesame oil, remaining broth, and gochujang if using. Pour over the beef and stir to coat.
- Cover and cook on LOW for 6 hours.
- Add the carrots and potatoes, pushing them down into the liquid. Cover and cook on LOW for 2 more hours, until the beef shreds easily with a fork.
- Skim the fat from the surface of the sauce. Stir in the cornstarch slurry, cover, and cook on HIGH for 15-20 minutes until the sauce thickens.
- Taste and adjust with a splash more vinegar if it needs brightness or a pinch of sugar if it tastes sharp.
- Serve over steamed rice, topped with green onions and sesame seeds.
