Slow Cooked Corned Beef with Spicy Guinness Gravy and Caramelized Cabbage
A recipe for corned beef, cooked low and slow, then served with a rich, creamy, and slightly spicy gravy made with Guinness beer and habanero peppers. This is NOT your traditional corned beef and cabbage recipe. Think outside the box this year.
This is sort of a long recipe, my friends, but you know what? It is seriously worth it. I’m posting this one early this year, long enough before St. Patrick’s Day so that you can have an option outside of the traditional corned beef and cabbage recipe you might have every year.
Don’t get me wrong!
There is absolutely NOTHING wrong with traditional corned beef and cabbage, but every now and then, we like something different.
Know what I mean?
We’re using all the same ingredients, with a few more tossed in – you know, chili peppers! Habanero! Jalapeno! The good stuff – along with Guinness Beer. Cooking the corned beef low and slow in Guinness beer infuses the beef with immense flavor and tenderness, and it will also form your freakishly delicious gravy for your topping.
OH. MY. GOODNESS. DANG. Guinness Gravy.
Bust out your Dutch Oven for this recipe. If you don’t have one, any oven safe pot will do, as long as it is large enough to hold the ingredients.
You can also make this in your slow cooker or crock pot, but it takes 8-10 hours for that method, whereas this was ready in 4 hours, and it was finger shredding tender.
Take a look.
You can see it already started to shred up around the edges. It pulls right apart with your fingers, so be careful cutting it. Melts in your mouth. YUM.
The key to the overall spice level is the addition of two habanero peppers. You won’t get any blazing heat here, as there are so many other ingredients and they’re strained out at the end, but if you think the habanero heat will be too much for you, consider other milder peppers, like serrano or jalapeno peppers.
Cook up your vegetables, then add the corned beef brisket to the pot along with Guinness beer, spicy mustard and honey, and cook it low and slow for 4 hours, flipping the beef about half way through.
Once it’s done and SUPER tender, remove the beef and strain out the liquid to form your gravy. Make a simple roux and swirl in the spiked Guiness, and boom!
GUINNESS GRAVY!
Patty and I were both like, WOW! This is seriously great stuff.
We also served up the cabbage differently as well. Instead of cabbage wedges and potatoes, we served the beef over mashed potatoes – use your favorite recipe – and caramelized the cabbage with peppers and onions, with the addition of a bit of balsamic vinegar.
They aren’t the prettiest veggies around, but we LOVE them. Don’t forget the lemon for the acid pop of flavor.
I’ve included the recipe for this below.
The thing about caramelizing vegetables is you need to keep an eye on the process. It takes a while, but I like hanging in the kitchen with some tunes, paying attention to the food.
And maybe drinking a Guinness. Yep. Heaven for me.
As the veggies cook down, add a bit of moisture here and there to make sure they don’t dry out. Not much, just a teaspoon or so of water or a broth. A single spoonful of sugar also helps to speed up the process.
The result? Sweet and richly flavored cabbage with peppers. Oh yeah!
It all turned out great. So, if you’re thinking about corned beef and cabbage this year but you want something a bit different, this recipe is one we hope you will consider.
I’d make this again in a heartbeat.
Patty’s Perspective
It’s so cool to enjoy such a unique take on corned beef and cabbage. It was very juicy and tender. It was a perfect pairing with mashed potatoes for this Midwestern meat and potatoes girl. And I have two works for you. “Guinness Gravy!”
Try Some of My Other Popular Corned Beef Recipes
- Slow Cooker Corned Beef – How To
- Pressure Cooker Corned Beef – Tender Corned Beef in a Hurry!
- Corned Beef Tacos with Creamy Cabbage Slaw
- Corned Beef Hash – Madness Style
- Corned Beef Stuffed Peppers
- Irish Nachos with Homemade Beer Cheese
If you try this recipe, please let us know! Leave a comment, rate it and tag a photo #ChiliPepperMadness on Instagram so we can take a look. I always love to see all of your spicy inspirations. Thanks! — Mike H.
- 1 bell pepper chopped
- 2 habanero peppers chopped
- 1 stalk celery chopped
- 1 large onion chopped
- 4 cloves garlic chopped
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 3 pound corned beef brisket
- 2 bottles Guinness beer - enough to almost cover the beef
- 3-4 tablespoons spicy mustard – I used our Homemade Habanero-Horseradish Mustard
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 tablespoon butter
- 1 tablespoon flour
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- ½ head medium sized cabbage shredded
- 1 white onion chopped
- 2 jalapeno peppers chopped into rings
- ¼ cup white wine
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- Water as needed
- ¼ cup balsamic vinegar
- Lemon for serving
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Preheat oven to 300 degrees.
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Rinse the corned beef thoroughly. It will be pretty darned salty. You can discard the seasoning packet it comes with. Not needed for this recipe. No way! Pat it dry and set aside.
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Heat a Dutch Oven or a wide-large pot to medium heat. Add olive oil and heat.
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Add peppers, celery and onion. Cook about 6 minutes to soften, stirring here and there.
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Add garlic and cook another minute.
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Wisk together the Guinness with the mustard and honey.
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Add corned beef to the Dutch Oven along with the beer mixture. Bring to a quick boil then reduce heat to simmer about 5 minutes. Cover and transfer to the oven.
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Cook for 4 hours, flipping the corned beef once about half way through.
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Remove from heat. Stick a fork in the corned beef and test for tenderness. You should be able to pop the fork right in there. If it isn’t tender enough for you, bake it another 30 minutes or so. It should be SUPER TENDER at this point.
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Remove the beef and rest a few minutes while you make your gravy.
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For the gravy, strain out the liquids into a separate bowl. You should have about 1 cup. Discard the solids.
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Heat the empty Dutch Oven back to medium heat on the stove and add butter. Melt.
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Swirl in the flour and stir to form a roux. Cook a couple minutes to brown nicely. Add the strained juices from the corned beef and reduce heat to a simmer. Stir often to thicken the gravy. It is SO GOOD!
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Slice the corned beef against the grain and serve over mashed potatoes, then top with your spicy Guinness gravy, and Caramelized Cabbage on the side. Here is a Cheesy Garlic Mashed Potatoes Recipe to consider. Or just use your favorite recipe.
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Heat a large pan to medium heat. A good stainless steel pan here is ideal.
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Add oil and heat. Add cabbage, onion and jalapeno peppers. Cook about 8 minutes to brown it all up, stirring frequently. You will form a lot of brown bits at the bottom of the pan. This is a good thing.
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Hit it with your white wine and let it reduce. Scrape up the bits from the bottom of the pan and stir. You may need to do this frequently.
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Reduce heat to medium-low and cook for about 40 minutes, scraping up bits from the bottom and stirring often. You can also add the sugar about 20 minutes through and stir to speed along the caramelization.
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When everything is nice and brown, add balsamic vinegar and stir. Cook for 5 minutes.
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Remove from heat and set into a serving dish. Squeeze a bit of lemon juice over the top and serve with extra lemon wedges.
5 comments
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Made this in the crockpot and it was awesome!!!!!!
Thanks, Matthew and Nancy. Super happy you loved it! Enjoy!
This is the first of any of your recipes that I have made. LOVED it! I was concerned that the habaneros would be too over-powering so I removed the seeds. Big mistake. Ended up with not much heat. The gravy makes this whole dish! Really delicious! Well done, Chili pepper madness!
I made this last night and the four of us agreed that this is the best corned beef we’ve ever had. Thank you for sharing.
Just found your site & am super stoked! I as well fall in the chile obsessed category & am loving your recipes. Definitely be visiting here often. Great photography by the way! The pic`s are awesome!
Thinking this Corned Beef will be gracing my table this St Patty`s Day!!
REPLY: Glad to meet you! — Mike from Chili Pepper Madness