Jamaican Oxtail Stew Recipe | Recipes From A Pantry (2024)

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It’s time to make this traditional Jamaican Oxtail recipe. Usually it’s known as an expensive dish, but this Jamaican Oxtail Stew is budget friendly, yet still full of the rich beef flavor.

You’ll also like Easy Jamaican Steamed Cabbageand Jamaican Brown Stew Chicken.

This recipe is suitable for Gluten Free diets. Post include Weight Watchers points.

If you’re looking for a full of flavor, traditional Jamaican dish, this Jamaican Oxtail Stew recipe is exactly that. If you know me, you know I like flavorful dishes and I like a variety of spices and recipes.

This Jamaican Oxtail Stew With butter beans recipe does require quite a bit of time, so you’ll want to plan for it ahead of time. This is certainly an easy oxtail recipe you can make again and again.

Cooking the meat low and slow means you end up with fall of the bone tender oxtail.

Once you take your first spoonful of this delicious, rich flavored frugal stew, you’ll know the time you spent waiting for this to simmer is soooooo worth it. Of course you can cook this Caribbean comfort food stew it a little faster in the Instant Pot.

Why Make This Recipe

• Pantry Ingredients– Made with mostly budget-friendly ingredients, a little oxtails goes a long way with this recipe.
• Feeds a Crowd– just the thing for sunday dinners, potlucks, parties, and soul food family feasts.
• Easy to make–Sear, fry a few things, add into a saucepan or crockpot and simmer away. It’s that easy!
• It’s customizable –A few simple changes and you can completely change this for different flavors.
• Leftovers freeze well– so that is a few weeknight suppers sorted!

Ingredient Notes

• Meat – This recipe calls foruncooked oxtailsthat have been sliced and washed.
• Vegetables – this recipe calls foronion and green onion.
• ▢3tbsptomato paste
• ▢1tspJamaican curry powder
• ▢1tspminced ginger
• ▢1tspminced garlic
• ▢1tsppimento berriesallspice berries
• ▢4sprigs of thyme
• ▢4cups(946ml) water
• ▢1tbspWorcestershire sauce
• ▢2tbspTamari soy sauceor regular soy sauce, if not gluten free
• ▢1 1/2tbspbrown sugar
• ▢1tspbrowning sauce
• ▢15ouncecan (425g) butter beansrinsed and drained
• ▢saltto taste

Head to the market to grab a couple pounds of ox tail and these tasty spices and let’s get ready to make this Oxtail Recipe Jamaican Style.

How to Make Jamaican Oxtail Stew

Get complete ingredients list and instructions from the recipe card below.

1. Start by taking your washed and sliced beef oxtail meat and season them with salt and pepper.
2. Heat 1 teaspoon of oil in a pan and brown seasoned oxtail on both sides and remove from heat and set aside once all tails are done. You may have to work in batches, depending on the quantity.
3. Add onion and green onion to the pot and cook for 5 mins, until softened.
4. Then mix in tomato paste, Jamaican curry powder, ginger puree, garlic puree, pimento berries and thyme with a spatula and fry for about 5 minutes, until fragrant.
5. Add in oxtails, water, worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, tamari and browning sauce.
6. Bring everything to boil, then cover the pan and lower heat to simmer for 2-2.5 hrs, or until the meat is soft.
7. About 15 minutes before done, add in the butter beans and rest of the seasonings.
8. Serve with some rice or cauliflower rice and enjoy!

Make This In A Slow Cooker

Prefer to make a slow cooker oxtail stew instead? You certainly can as this lends itself to that long low cooking that really brings out the flavor.

1. Follow the recipe above and complete step 5.
2. Then transfer everything into a slow cooker (reducing the water by about 1 to 1 1/2 cup) and cook on low for 7-8 hours until done to your liking.
3. Add the beans and any extra water needed at the 6 hour mark.

Expert Recipe Tips

• Depending on the size of the ox tail chunks, you may need to cook a bit longer.
• Try and keep the tails to the same size so they cook at the same rate.
• The more fat on the tail chunks the better as this means more natural flavor.
• Oxtails can be oily, so do NOT forget to scoop out the excess fat after cooking them.
• If you’re not worried about keeping this recipe gluten free, you can swap the tamari for regular soy sauce.

Delicious Variations

• Swap the beans – Traditional Jamaican Oxtails are made with butter beans, but if you don’t have them on hand or prefer something else, feel free to use a different type of bean like broad beans.
• Add spices – Start by adding small amounts of the spices and feel free to adjust to your taste.
• Don’t have pimento berries? You can use about a ½ teaspoon of ground allspice instead.

• Add extra veggies – Feel free to bulk this out with potatoes, sweet potatoes, bell pepper etc.
• Add extra heat – try adding one whole scotch bonnet pepper to the pot as it cooks, then make sure to remove once the stew is done.
• If you like extra spicy heat, go ahead and add chopped scotch bonnet pepper to your stew. These peppers have a tropical, Caribbean flavor and are as hot as a habanero pepper.

Prep Ahead And Storing

Feel free to make an extra batch or two of this Jamaican Braised Oxtail stew and freeze it to enjoy again later. And if you are a fan of #mealprep then making extra, or freezing any extra stew you have, helps make this a frugal recipe, which means you can easily stick to your meal prep budget.

• Refrigerator: Let cool down completely before transferring it into an air tight container and storing in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.
• Freezer: Store in Ziploc bags, remove all the air, label them and freeze for up to 3 months.
• Reheat: Take frozen bags of stew out of your freezer and allow to thaw in the refrigerator the night before. Warm in the microwave to desired temperature. Or you can reheat the stew in a saucepan on the stovetop. You may need to thicken the stew (directions below in a different section) or thin it a bit by adding a cup of water.

FAQs

More Jamaican Recipes

• Easy Jamaican Steamed Cabbage.
• Jamaican Sorrel Drink.
• Jamaican Curried Goat.
• Dump and Start Jamaican Instant Pot Carrot Soup.
• Jamaican Cornmeal Porridge.

Serving Suggestions

Sometime, I eat a bowl of it just as is. It is that good. However you can serve it along with some

• Jamaican Rice and Peas.
• Crockpot Mashed Potatoes.
• Instant Pot Brown Rice
• Fried Plantains

Weight Watchers Points

There are 8 Blue Plan SmartPointsin one serving of this oxtail stew.

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