Corned Beef and Cabbage with Horseradish Cream Sauce Recipe
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Liven up this classic Irish boiled dinner by curing the beef yourself. Our recipe takes less time than most (3 days instead of weeks), and you can tailor the seasoning to your own taste. You’ll likely have leftovers—use them up in a Corned Beef–Potato Rösti or our larger-than-life Reuben Sandwich.
What to buy: We use a whole boneless beef brisket for this recipe; you may need to special-order one from your butcher.
Game plan: If you want to make this for St. Patrick’s Day, plan ahead—you will need to let the beef brine for at least 3 days before you cook it. If you want the pickled flavor to be more prominent, you can brine the beef for up to 1 week. The color will be more gray than store-bought corned beef, which is often full of nitrates and curing salt, helping keep it pink.
This recipe was featured as part of our Make Your Own Corned Beef story.
For the brine:
- 6 cups water
- 3/4 cup kosher salt
- 1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
- 1/4 cup pickling spice
- 1 (5-pound) beef brisket
For the corned beef, cabbage, and sauce:
- 1 medium yellow onion, quartered
- 3 large carrots, peeled and cut crosswise into thirds
- 6 medium garlic cloves, smashed
- 1 cup sour cream
- 2 tablespoons prepared horseradish
- 2 tablespoons Dijon mustard
- 1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
- Kosher salt
- Freshly ground black pepper
- 1 medium head green cabbage, cut through the core into 6 wedges
- Combine the water, salt, sugar, and pickling spice in a large saucepan and bring to a boil over high heat, stirring until salt and sugar have dissolved. Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature.
- Poke several holes on all sides of the brisket with a knife or metal skewer and place in a 2-1/2-gallon resealable plastic bag. Pour the brine over the meat (making sure the meat is completely submerged), press out excess air, seal the bag, and place in a 13-by-9-inch baking dish. Refrigerate for 3 days or up to 1 week.
For the corned beef, cabbage, and sauce:
- Remove the beef from brine and brush off any spices that have stuck to the meat. Place in a Dutch oven or large, heavy-bottomed pot with a tightfitting lid. Add the onion, carrots, garlic, and enough cold water to cover. Bring to a boil over high heat and then reduce to a simmer. Skim any foam that floats to the top, cover, and simmer until meat is fork tender, about 2 to 3 hours.
- Meanwhile, combine the sour cream, horseradish, mustard, and lemon juice in a medium nonreactive bowl. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper as needed, cover, and refrigerate until ready to serve.
- Once the beef is fork tender, add the cabbage to the pot, cover, and cook until cabbage is easily pierced with a knife, about 10 to 15 minutes.
- Remove the beef to a cutting board and let rest for 10 minutes. Trim fat as desired and thinly slice against the grain. Serve with vegetables and horseradish sauce.
Worked just fine. Cut the brisket in 3 pieces.
Ate 1 after 4 days - nice
Ate 1 after 1 week - better
The last piece is still "corning".....
Now, I'll have to think on which piece, other than brisket (now expensive relatively due to the BBQ people) to corn - maybe shin beef or perhaps round or chuck.
Chuck may work, but it is quite fatty relative to top round.
Colour is not an issue - taste is. Besides, the color was not a put-off.
I made this because where I live, commercial corned beef isn't available, other than the mushy, nasty canned stuff. I used beef shoulder and brined it for 6 days (no particular reason for 6; I bought the beef on the 11th.
This is DELICIOUS - I used Corned Beef Spice Blend from penzeys.com, and the whole house now smells of fragrant spices.
I did mine in the pressure cooker just because of the time constraints today -- and in 40 minutes my beef was tender, moist, and fantastic. I did the potatoes and carrots in the pressure cooker with the beef, and they're very tender, but not mushy. I did the cabbage separately so as not to overcook it -- it was done in just a little less time than the beef.
So as the Chieftains play in the background, and I near the last drop of my Guinness, I put this one in the "Permanent Keeper" file to use next year.
Just for the record, I'd make this again in a heartbeat -- it was way tastier than any of the commercially-corned roasts I've ever bought. Mine wasn't pink, but a nice grey-brown -- boiled beef isn't the most appetizing color, ever, and I like that there aren't any additional chemicals in the mix.
OR......
Buy a Shenson's and enjoy?
Which cut should be used? Grey, Red? Point or Flat?which is the one that almost falls apart?
Great recipe - it does end up a bit drab and gray looking, but it doesn't affect the taste in any way and if that's what happens when you don't add saltpetre, I'm all for it.
http://www.scentedcandlestore.com
When I've made corned beef, I've also used curing salt, which gives it a much more pleasant colour, and means that botulism doesn't have to be a worry.
Also, not to be an inflexible stickler, but corned beef isn't a traditional Irish dish. It's an Irish-American adaptation of older Irish dishes using salt pork, or bacon.
I've been making my own corned beef brisket for about 50 years now. Methods of brining vary with the individual, of course (for example I prefer a dash ot Saltpeter to prevent that unappetizing gray color). However, I find it difficult to believe that a 5-pound brisket can be ready in three days.
To me, 10 days would be minimum, and 2 weeks would be best. But then, I want my brisket to be REALLY well corned.
I know I am always late with a post It is now October 2009& as my mate is working I thought I would buy a slab of corned beef silverside & cook it myself instead of buying it sliced, I simmer with the usual ingredients, a clove studded onion, halved, 1/4 cup malt vinegar, 2 Tblspns brown sugar or 2 Tblsps golden syrup, & 2 bay leaves for a 3lb piece of meat, cover with cold water & simmer for 1 1/2- 2 hours (I found a nice recipe in Recipezaar # 151187) BUT I then like to drain it & to put it in a baking dish, firsts smearing the meat with dijon mustard & then covering it with a layer of brown sugar, bake in a preheated oven, 350o.F till it glazes over, about 30 minutes. I serve mine with steamed potatoes, then I lke to fry lots of onions wih chopped bacon & chopped cabbage with lemon juice, & caraway seeds with a bit of water splashed in for a steam effect
save cooking water for soups home made kind . john
for me only a fine fat on thick brisket will do , no fat no good as i say! then bring to boil cook low till done then take out put in baking pan and put in overn on say 250 or so. keep warn this makes it real great as you cook all the veg. in the same water . put veg on tray cut cornbeef on wood place on top . most briskets have a tine fat line so cut there to have 2 parts top and lower one . john
Vegetables added at the beginning of a dish liked this are usually intended to flavor the meat and not to be eaten. Vegetables added toward the end (30 minutes to an hour for potatoes and root vegetables in a slowly simmering pot) are for eating and are best kept in a cheesecloth or mesh bag, so that they may be removed easily from the pot.
This recipe adds the veggies at the beginning along with the beef (and omits potatoes?) Aren't the vegetables overcooked by the time the meat is done? Shouldn't they be added towards the end, or am I missing something here?
As mmf23 asks above, has anyone tried this?
We corned our own beef last year (not CH's recipe though), and I'm pretty sure it took 2-3 hours. It definitely seemed shorter cooking time than the store-bought corned beef. This year we bought a in-store corned brisket from Whole Foods...it looks a lot like the one we did ourselves last year!
Has anyone tried this recipe? The cooking time is much shorter than the cooking times I'm seeing on other corned beef and cabbage recipes, so I'm wondering how this one comes out.
Back in the olden days we used to buy corned round of beef roasts and preferred them to brisket. We haven't been able to find a corned round roast in ages; doing our own will take care of that. My question though is what part of the round should be used or if it matters.