Classic Beef Brisket With Caramelized Onions Recipe (2024)

This is very similar to my mother's much-ballyhooed recipe, although she used beef bouillon cubes, not wine. Her "secret" to getting the perfect slices was to braise the meat (and big onions; they are so divine when sautéed, then thrown into the cooking meat!), removing the brisket after about an hour. She would slice the meat while still rare, and allow the broth to separate from the fat overnight. The next day, the brisket can simmer away to tender perfection, already sliced.

If you are covering with tight fitting lid, why use "shallow roasting pan"? Wouldn't dutch oven work as well?

I usually use 5 onions cut up and putting the brisket on top of them in a dutch oven, I use a bottle of guiness with a splash of soy sauce, salt, pepper, put cover on then into a 475 degree oven for 15 minutes, turn down to 300 degrees and cook for about three hours. If you want you can add many carrots after about two and a half hours. When the knife goes in easily take out of oven and let rest with lid off for about 45 minutes. Delicious and yes, the next day a sandwich or just heat it up

Stu,
I have found that almost any well sharpened (non serrated) knife will do the job quite well. Do you think that Davids' mother had a Wüstof knife, or for that matter, any brand name knife? I'd guess she had a good carbon steel blade, and it might have been sharpened by the itinerant neighborhood man, who made a living sharpening knives door to door, leaving behind a blade that could have shaved grandpa.

I think I like David's mothers recipe more than his. All that wine and water is unnecessary. And the meat should be browned first seasoning with salt and pepper and a few cloves garlic. A 5- to 6- pound brisket is huge and can't possibly be done in 3 hours. As for onions put sliced onions on top-- about 3 to 4 for a 3 pound brisket. Add about 1/2 cup or more of chicken stock,some tomato paste and cover tightly and roast at 300 degrees. The onions will make tons of liquid.

I find that it's much easier to slice cooked brisket when it's cold. I cook my brisket the day/night before and separate the sauce and the brisket and refrigerate. An hour or so before I plan on eating it I slice the brisket, scrape out the fat from the sauce, and warm both the sauce and brisket together.

My brisket was 2.5lbs and relatively lean. Made the spice mix with only 2T kosher salt and didn't go overboard with it. Salted, wrapped and marinated 1 day; roasted at 275 for three hours then refrigerated for 1 day; then defatted, sliced it thin and put back into a 300 oven for an hour with a generous moistening of broth. Boiled the broth down and whisked in 1T of cold butter to boot. Brisket was INCREDIBLY tender and flavorful. Huge hit. Onions too. Will make again.

About the whole head of garlic... Throw it into the baking dish whole? Break it up into cloves but keep the peel on? Or use peeled cloves? I'm sure one can use any of these options to get a flavor profile to their liking, but I'm wondering what the author used specifically.

A couple of tricks I my mother taught me:- If you put a few slices of rye bread, along with a good handful or two of sliced onions in the roasting pan and then lay the brisket, fat side down, on top, you’ll end up with a rich thick gravy.- Use a pie server to slather the surface of the meat with a thin coating of tomato paste or ketchup.- Mom would braise it in beer. For the one I just put in the oven, I combined an ale and a cider.

This is NOT the time to get out the serrated knife for slicing. Instead, use a straight-edge knife like the WÜSTHOF "Pro" 11" Roast Beef Slicer Knife, 4859-7/28. These knives are seriously sharp and do a fantastic job of slicing without shredding.

I've made brisket for over 30 years. This recipe is truly the best one. I did not refrigerate it overnight, and I used sweet wine instead of dry. It was amazing.

I suggest following the tip about refrigerating overnight and removing the congealed fat. But I also slice the brisket before reheating. This makes it possible to cut very thin uniform slices.

Grandma always cooked hers to death and so do I. No salting. I start it on the burner with stock, wine, paprika, onions, garlic and bay leaves and bring to a boil. Put it in the oven at 250 for 8 hours. Refrigerate until cold. Defat the broth, make the gravy, and trim and slice the brisket-must be *very* cold. The edges may shred a bit but the slices hold for the most part. Gently reheat slices in the gravy. Blitzing the onions in the broth thickens the gravy.

I liked everything about it except that it was way too salty for my taste. Guests didn't comment. I even double-checked that I had read the recipe correctly. Next time I'll use 3 teaspoons of salt instead of 3 tablespoons.

Since this is a braise you are looking for texture and tenderness so an exact temperature is really not relevant. A brisket is a tough cut of meat that needs heat, moisture and time to tenderize. Think of it like a stew. But a bigger piece of meat. Most briaskets take at least 2 hours or more to cook.

Always put potatoes in with the brisket. Why wouldn't you? Don't need to do anything except put them in. Can get fancy and add carrots, pearl onions, turnips, mushrooms. . . what have you.

This was absolutely delicious! We did not have any wine, so I used bouillon, but I don’t think the extra salt was necessary. We will probably use wine (white) or all water next time. We saved the roasted, juicy garlic cloves to use in other recipes. We may never make any other kind of brisket again!

The guys at West Side Market told me they used beef stock straight from the container to make the gravy for their excellent brisket so I’m going with that. They use College Inn beef broth and add carrots and onions.

Love this recipe, and it’s become our traditional Rosh Hashana meal. I added quartered Yukon Gold potatoes and chunked whole carrots to the pan at the start along with the brisket. However…3 hours at 300 degrees is nowhere near enough time to cook this…ended up at closer to 5 hours. Refrigerated it overnight to cold slice it, then reheated at 325 degrees for two hours (covered w foil both times). And yes, it’s a 3 day process: dry rub on 1st day, cook 2nd day, reheat and serve 3rd.

I made this recipe once, never again. Beware of the cloves!! The entire dish was overwhelmed by the flavor of cloves, and washing the meat did not get rid of the clove flavor. I had to throw it out.

Definitely consider using a bottle of Guinness rather than wine. It adds real depth to the dish. So too, Guinness rather than wine in beef stew (even Julia’s boeuf bourguignon recipe) blasts the finished product into the stratosphere. For those maybe wondering about brisket and Guinness, consider that the first rabbi of the Truro synagogue was an Irishman. Just sayin’.

I followed this recipe exactly. I had a 7 lb brisket which required 4 hrs 20 minutes to reach tenderness. We loved the subtle allspice and cloves, but I still feel browning both sides first would have yielded a more toothsome brisket.

I made this brisket with two slight alterations twice now - Rosh Hashanah and last night for a Passover seder, and both times it seemed to be a hit. The alterations I made were I reduced the amount of salt because my elderly father is on a low sodium diet, and I coated it with tomato paste along with the spices before placing it in the fridge the day before I first popped it in the oven. Everyone at the seder had lovely things to say about it, and the caramelized onions in particular.

My wife followed this recipe to the letter. The result was so salty neither of us could really eat it. I'm wondering if the 3 tablespoons of salt should be three teaspoons, as in other brisket recipes I've seen. Also it required probably an extra hour to cook at the specified temperature; at that point it was quite tender.

great recipe!!! I would us a smaller amount of cloves and the brisket I brought at the store was 6.7 lbs - and took about 4 3/4 hours to cook.

How do you use the garlic? Just drop a head of garlic in the pan? Peel the head? Peel the individual cloves? Trim the top off like your roasting a head of garlic?

I feel like simple steamed potatoes and green vegetables like broccoli would go well with this. Any recommendations?

WHATTTT!! " Disgard congealed fat"?? Save it as base for future meat sauces, stirfrys, stews, etc. It is a treasure!!

Delicious— I cooked the meat the day before, chilled, sliced & reheated the next day. I made the additional onions the day I served the meat. perfect.

In the recipe directions there’s no mention of searing the meat first. In the Notes a few people mention searing. Is searing necessary?