Jamaican thyme

This Jamaican Oxtails Recipe is fall off the bone tender and full of jamaican thyme flavor. It can be made in about an hour with your pressure cooker or cook it low and slow in a slow cooker. This Jamaican Oxtails recipe is the perfect Caribbean stew for dinner. Delicious and tender oxtail and butter beans that is cooked to perfection.

Make it in the Instant Pot or any electric Pressure Cooker. This post contains affiliate links, please read my full disclaimer here. If you ever ask me what my favorite Jamaican dish is, I’ll probably say oxtail. It’s a recipe that my mom would make for special occasions. I wish we could have eaten it weekly, but oxtail can be so darn expensive. Oxtails usually takes hours to cook. But wow, the flavor and the tenderness the oxtail brings is worth it.

Lucky for me, I’m a pressure cooking fanatic and found that using a pressure cooker cuts the time of cooking oxtail by a ton. For this recipe, you can use a pressure cooker or even a slow cooker. First, I mise en place my ingredients by chopping my onions, garlic, and scotch bonnet or habanero pepper. Make sure to remove the seeds and membrane from the hot pepper, or your oxtail will be too spicy.

Then prepare your oxtails by cleaning them with a little bit of water and vinegar, and then dry them off with some paper towels. I know I know, they say not to wash your meat but my mom would literally cuss me out if I didn’t. This Jamaican Oxtail recipe is the perfect Caribbean stew for dinner. Make sure you’re watching the oxtails at this browning stage, as you don’t want to burn the oxtail.

If you do, your oxtail gravy will taste bitter later on. Once you’ve browned your oxtail, deglaze your pressure cooker by adding about 2 tbsp of beef broth to the insert. Take a wooden spoon and deglaze your pot by removing the brown bits at the bottom. Then add your yellow onions, green onions, carrots, garlic, and scotch bonnet pepper. Stir and sauté for about 5 minutes or until the onions have softened. Once your timer goes off, allow the pressure cooker to naturally release.

All this means is that you don’t touch it. If you’re like me, you may anxiously stare at the pressure cooker waiting for your oxtail goodness. After about 25 minutes, all of your pressure should have been released. Once your liquid starts to boil, make a cornstarch slurry by whisking the cornstarch with water in a separate bowl. Slowly stir in the slurry into the pressure cooker. Add drained butter beans to the pressure cooker as well and stir them in. Cook for about 5 minutes until the sauce has thickened a little and the butter beans are warmed.

It’s best if all your oxtails are medium sized oxtails that are similar in size. If you can’t get them the same size, no worries. Oxtail that is too fatty will lead to fatty gravy. You want some fat, just not too much fat. If your oxtail is extremely fatty, use a paring knife to remove some of the excess fat.