Complex Meals Made Easy: How to Make Easy Asian BBQ Short Ribs in 8 Steps

Click here to make things easier on yourself. Keep reading to get the whole scoop.

This is Why People Order Takeout Instead of Cooking at Home

Asian BBQ, Korean BBQ — there are a couple of names this dish goes by in the U.S., but generally speaking, we’re all talking about a delicious Korean dish called Kalbi or Galbi. Imagine sweet, succulent short ribs made bolder and better by a sticky-sweet sauce boasting notes of brown sugar, mirin, and pear…

If you’re already salivating, hold on a tick — here’s how you’d actually make it at home.

Start by assembling all of your ingredients: Korean-style beef short ribs (if you need, you can substitute with American or European-style), brown sugar, soy sauce, mirin (rice wine), onion, one Asian pear, garlic, sesame oil, pepper, and green onions.

Is your station all set up? Everything there? Good. Next, you’ll want to coat the ribs with the brown sugar and let sit at room temperature for 10 minutes or so while you prepare the marinade. For that, whisk everything else in a large bowl — oh, except you’ll need to measure your liquids, grate your onion, peel and grate your pear, mince your garlic, and slice your green onions first.

When you’re done with all of that prep (likely more than 10 minutes later), then whisk the rest of your ingredients together in a large bowl. Transfer your short ribs to a large sealable freezer bag and cover them with the marinade. Make sure they’re completely covered and that the bag is sealed tight — now, it’s time to wait. You have to refrigerate your ribs overnight.

Weren’t you here for a multi-day recipe? No? Don’t decide to get takeout just yet…

Actually Easy Asian BBQ Short Ribs (aka. Kalbi or Galbi)

With just a few extra minutes before head off to your day, you can cook a beautiful plate (or four!) of Asian BBQ short ribs. Here’s how to do it in X easy steps:

1. Pull out your Slow Cooker.
2. Unpack and assemble the ingredients from your Asian BBQ Beef Short Ribs Slow Cooker Meal: two packages of beef short ribs, and a bag of vegetables (with rice and sauce pouches enclosed).
3. Remove the rice and sauce pouches from the vegetable bag, and then return the rice and vegetable bag to your freezer.
4. Open the beef packages and place your beef in the bottom of the slow cooker. If needed, place beef and/or sauce pouches under cold water to loosen film prior to opening.
5. Next, open each of the sauce packets and add on top of your beef.
6. Cover and cook on LOW for 8 hours or HIGH for 6 hours — how much time do you want back?
7. When you’ve only got an hour of cook time left to go, add your vegetables to the mix.
8. Finally, when that last 60 minutes’ ticks away, microwave your rice pouch on HIGH for 3 minutes. Open carefully. Then, all you need to do is spoon your short ribs and veggies over your rice and enjoy!

Better than takeout? You better believe it.