Slow Cooker Grass Fed Beef Shanks & Cabbage Stew

5 from 2 votes

Published Jan 02, 2011

Updated Apr 05, 2023

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read our privacy and disclosure policy.

I’m always looking for shortcuts to deliciousness, so even though my last slow cooker experiment was an abject failure, I was determined to undertake a new experiment this morning.

I’d defrosted a couple of 2-inch center cut grass fed beef shanks, and was looking forward to chucking everything into the slow cooker so I’d have a tasty cabbage and beef shank stew ready to devour when I woke up in the evening. (Well, I was hoping it’d be tasty…)

Time to make Slow Cooker Grass Fed Beef Shanks and Cabbage Stew!

Serves 6

Ingredients:

½ pound organic baby carrots
2 medium onions, roughly chopped
1 small cabbage (about 2 pounds), cored, and cut into 8 wedges
8 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
2 Turkish bay leaves
2 center-cut grass fed beef shanks (about 2″ thick)
Kosher salt
Freshly ground pepper
1 (15-ounce) can of organic diced tomatoes, drained
1 cup organic chicken broth
2 tablespoons coconut aminos

Equipment:

All of my recommended kitchen tools are listed here.

Method:

I dumped the baby carrots and chopped onions into the bottom of my slow cooker…

…and layered the cabbage wedges on top.

I threw in the smashed garlic cloves and bay leaves, and seasoned the beef shanks with salt and pepper to taste (by the way, feel free to be pretty heavy-handed with the S&P).

Then, I plopped ‘em on top of the cabbage.

The last step was to pour in the diced tomatoes and broth…

…before putting on the lid. I set the slow cooker on low and let it do its thing for 9 hours while I hit the sack. (Ah, the nocturnal life of a night shift worker…)

When I woke up, the house was suffused with a rich, beefy aroma. I couldn’t wait to peek at the stew. Lifting the lid off the slow cooker, I saw that the meat had pulled away from the bone and the marrow was perfectly cooked. Score!

I removed and plated the bones (and delicious marrow), shredded the meat, and tasted the stew for seasoning. The pot liquor was exploding with flavor, but it was a bit on the sweet side for my taste from all the onions and carrots, so I added a couple of tablespoons of coconut aminos and some more salt and pepper.

In the meantime, I oven-roasted some cremini mushrooms tossed with Tabil seasoning and macadamia nut oil (400 F on convection roast for 25 minutes) and quickly whipped up some garlic cauliflower mashed “potatoes” (this time, substituting extra virgin olive oil for the grass-fed butter).

Here’s my dinner plate:

All in all, not too shabby for a simple dump-and-cover slow cooker meal. Because the meat was grass fed, it wasn’t quite as meltingly tender as your typical crappy (but admittedly yummy) grain ‘n corn-fed stuff. Nonetheless, it was TONS better than the grass fed “beef stew” that crawled out of my slow cooker a few days ago. Plus, bone marrow is just so damn tasty –- mouth-filling, fatty, and full of umami goodness. I’m really happy I joined our meat CSA; left to my own devices, I never would’ve thought to buy beef shanks. Now, I’m gonna order them as extra items when I get next month’s box o’ animal parts!

Looking for more recipe ideas? Head on over to my Recipe Index. You’ll also find exclusive recipes on my iPhone and iPad app, and in my cookbooks, Nom Nom Paleo: Food for Humans (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2013), Ready or Not! (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2017), and Nom Nom Paleo: Let’s Go! (Andrews McMeel Publishing 2021).

PRINTER-FRIENDLY RECIPE CARD

Beef Egg-Free Nut-Free (not including coconut) Recipes Slow Cooker Whole30

About Michelle Tam

Hello! My name is Michelle Tam, and I love to eat. I think about food all the time. It borders on obsession. I’ve always loved the sights and smells of the kitchen. My mother was (and is) an excellent cook, and as a kid, I was her little shadow as she prepared supper each night. From her, I gained a deep, abiding love for magically transforming pantry items into mouth-watering family meals.