Made with corned beef brisket and hearty veggies, this easy corned beef and cabbage recipe is simple, flavorful, and full of St. Patrick’s Day tradition.
This easy corned beef and cabbage recipe features root vegetables and creamy Yukon Gold potatoes.
Photo Credit : Amy Traverso
This easy corned beef and cabbage recipe is a great starting point for a proper Saint Patrick’s Day celebration. It’s simple, flavorful, hearty, and so fully traditional that even grumpy Aunt Mary will have no grounds for griping about leaving well enough alone.
This easy corned beef and cabbage recipe features root vegetables and creamy Yukon Gold potatoes. Photo Credit : Amy Traverso
But before I sing its praises any further, I have to tip my hat to Jane and Michael Stern, whose 1986 essay for this magazine called “In Praise of the New England Boiled Dinner” was the ultimate ode to a good piece of corned beef with all the fixings:
In the current age of culinary frippery and fickle food fashion, of nouvelle cuisine and diet dinners of Pritikin paucity, there is something especially estimable about a plainly named plate of meat and potatoes. Health foodies and fussy chefs de cuisine be damned; the world needs real nourishment when it sits down at the table, a stick-to-the-ribs hunk of cow with vegetables dug up from the good earth. And when it comes to eating plain and square, we in the northeastern part of the United States have everyone else beat. We’ve got the plainest, squarest, clunkiest, and most wonderful meat and potatoes meal in America — the New England Boiled Dinner.
In preparing for this column, I reviewed several of our existing recipes for corned beef and cabbage and found several worthy variations. Former Yankee food editor Annie Copps did a wonderful take with brisket she corned herself by curing it for a week in an aromatic brine and served it with roasted—not boiled—veg. Being fond of roasted roots, I was tempted to follow her lead, but ultimately decided to stick closer to tradition. I also started with a supermarket corned beef rather than curing it myself. But I did create a broth with my own preferred seasonings, which flavors both the meat and the vegetables and gives you a thin sauce to serve alongside. The result? The perfect easy corned beef and cabbage recipe for your St. Patrick’s Day celebration. Looking for an easy corned beef and cabbage recipe for St. Patrick’s Day? This one’s a keeper. Photo Credit : Amy Traverso
EASY CORNED BEEF AND CABBAGE RECIPE
Total Time: About 5 hours
Hands-on Time: 45 minutes
Yield: 8 to 10 servings
Ingredients
5- to 7-pound corned-beef brisket (discard spice packet)
1 medium onion, halved
1 medium celery stalk, halved
1 medium carrot, peeled and halved
8 whole peppercorns
8 whole cloves, lightly smashed with the side of a knife
2 bay leaves
3 garlic cloves (optional)
1 teaspoon whole mustard seeds
Kosher or sea salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 medium cabbage head (preferably Savoy), cut into 8 wedges, core intact (so that leaves don’t fall off)
1 pound baby carrots
8 medium Yukon gold potatoes, quartered lengthwise
2 large turnips, peeled, halved lengthwise, and cut into 1/2-inch-thick wedges
Dijon mustard for serving
Put beef in a very large (7- t0 9-quart) Dutch oven or stockpot and cover with water by 2 inches. Add onion, celery, carrot, peppercorns, cloves, bay leaves, garlic (if using), and mustard seeds. Turn heat to high and bring water to a boil; then reduce heat to low and simmer until meat is fork-tender, 4 to 4 1/2 hours, depending on thickness. Check meat occasionally and add additional water as needed to keep it level with the meat.
Remove the corned beef to a large platter, cover loosely with foil, and let rest. Strain the liquid from the pot through a fine-mesh sieve, collecting it in a large bowl. Return the liquid to the pot and taste to check seasoning. If needed, add kosher salt and ground pepper, then bring to a boil. Add the cabbage, baby carrots, potatoes, and turnips. Return to a boil, then reduce heat to low and simmer, covered, until vegetables are tender, 15 to 20 minutes. Drain vegetables, reserving 2 cups of broth to serve on the side.
Slice the corned beef against the grain into 1/4-inch-thick pieces; then serve on a platter with the vegetables arranged around it. Serve with Dijon mustard and reserved broth on the side.
Do you have a favorite easy corned beef and cabbage recipe for St. Patrick’s Day?
This post was first published in 2017 and has been updated.
Amy Traverso is the senior food editor at Yankee magazine and co-host of the public television series Weekends with Yankee, a coproduction with WGBH. Previously, she was food editor at Boston magazine and an associate food editor at Sunset magazine. Her work has also been published in The Boston Globe, Saveur, and Travel & Leisure, and she has appeared on Hallmark Home & Family, The Martha Stewart Show, Throwdown with Bobby Flay, and Gordon Ramsay’s Kitchen Nightmares. Amy is the author of The Apple Lover’s Cookbook, which was a finalist for the Julia Child Award for best first-time author and won an IACP Cookbook Award in the “American” category.
