Hearty Oxtail Soup Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Why do you soak oxtail before cooking? ›

By soaking and blanching the oxtail before cooking any impurities are removed. To cook: Oxtail requires long, slow cooking to produce tender, succulent meat.

Braising makes for delicious and tender results, but there's no question that it takes time and patience. A good braised oxtail dish can take 3 hours or more to tenderize, and not everyone has the schedule for low-and-slow cooking.

There is a good amount of fat and collagen that melt into your dishes as oxtail cooks, which will give a wonderful round texture to sauces and that slightly sticky feel to the meat. And the bonus flavor from the bone marrow that will cook into your dishes make this cut one to really get to know and not be afraid of!

Oxtail soup makes the best bone broth!

The oxtail meat will impart a crazy amount of beefy flavor to the broth—and you can shred it and add it to the soup!

For clear, brothy soups, stock is your most important ingredient. If you want to make a good soup, you need to use an excellently flavored stock — otherwise, the entire pot could be tasteless.

"If your broth is lacking in savory richness, try adding roasted onion, tomato paste, mushrooms, seaweed, soy sauce, or miso. These ingredients add umami flavor and depth to broth," she says. The choice of ingredient depends on the recipe, though.

Fill with enough water to cover oxtails and place over high heat. Bring to a boil. Cover and reduce heat to medium. Cook oxtails until tender, 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

Browning your oxtails will not cook the meat. Instead, it will enhance its color and aroma by caramelizing its exterior. Browning beef oxtails in a hot skillet before braising will also add rich depth and flavor to the meat.

The key to transforming naturally tough and chewy oxtail into soft morsels of meat that readily slide off the bone is to braise it low and slow. This allows the vast amounts of collagen and connective tissue to slowly break down, rendering the oxtail tender and resulting in a broth thick with gelatin.

There are many ways to tenderize oxtail before you actually start the cooking process. Low sodium soy sauce is my secret! Soy sauce helps the meat retain its moisture, tenderizes the meat, and enhances the savory flavor we all love.

Why does my oxtail taste bitter? ›

OK, so if you find that your brown stew 'oxtail' dish has a more bitter taste, this is more than likely due to using too much browning sauce. No worries---you can fix this! Simply break up the bitter taste with a bit of ketchup, brown sugar, and additional stock. This should help!

No matter how you cook oxtail, you'll first want to cut off the excess fat to prevent the dish from becoming too greasy. Then, brown the surface of the meat, and add onions, carrots, garlic, thyme, and any other aromatics you like, with enough beef broth to cover the meat.

Oxtail is rich in Collagen, a vital protein for our body's growth and repair. Oxtail is high in fat so an ideal energy source for a Ketogenic, Paleo, or Carnivore Diet. With over 70% fat, Oxtail is Ideal for anyone on a high fat / low carb or no-carb diet. Oxtail must be slow-cooked to break down the connective tissue.

So, demand is up. But there's also a matter of supply. There aren't many small companies left that do their own slaughtering, Wetterauer says. Major packing houses don't take time to deal with less popular and what used to be less expensive parts, such as shanks, marrow, neckbones or oxtails.

Broth made from Oxtail can benefit the digestive system. The amino acid in collagen is Glutamine and is known to heal and prevent a condition called leaky gut.