Oxtail Curry Recipe

Easy oxtail curry recipe on stove! How to cook oxtail to tender with a ton of flavor with Jamaican spices. Great served on a bed of rice or as is in a bowl like a stew. Make it spicy with peppers or leave it mild for a hearty dinner your whole family will enjoy.

If you love Jamaican flavors you are going to love these curry flavors. Kind of like our Instant Pot oxtail soup, a bit closer to the thickness of a stew with some fresh tomatoes and Caribbean seasonings. Let’s just say it is all the things in one bowl y’all. (affiliate links present)

If I buy a ton of oxtails, how would I cook them?

If you are new to cooking this cut of beef there is a trick to it. In order to get the connective tissues to break down and your meat to fall off the bones and cartilage you do need to boil oxtails on the stove essentially. What I mean by this is submerging them into water or broth, boiling them to tenderize the protein is key.

You can’t be in a hurry to do this, you’ll need a few hours to get it just right. Keep that in mind when you cook Ox Tail period, no matter what you are going to do with them later. With that said, pulled off the bone and seasoned right it is pretty incredible. Adding that into a sauce or soup is even better if you ask me.

Do you have to brown oxtails before cooking?

You do want to brown them after you have added spices to the outside so they stick nicely and the outsides brown to keep the meat moist. This cut does have a strong flavor without any oxtail seasoning coated on. Below our mixture is curry focused and the ingredients for that is below.

You can call it soup or gravy. I guess that depends on how you want to serve it up. If it is going to be spooned over something like a bed of rice or with Naan bread then the meat would be more of the star. In a bowl with more of the liquid would be more of a soup.

Traditional Jamaican Oxtail Curry Ingredients

• 4 large oxtails defrosted is best, but frozen works you’d just have to skip the sauteeing
• Olive oil used to brown in the first step
• Onion diced are a nice touch
• Minced garlic and ginger are wonderful
• Water or beef broth is the base of the liquid you boil them in
• Celery we love but optional
• Scotch bonnet peppers are popular, or finely diced jalapeno for spicy
• Ketchup
• Salt and black pepper
• Curry powder
• 1 tbsp caribbean seasoning
• Allspice
• Thyme

You can easily adjust the heat to your liking. I love adding very finely diced roasted jalapeno but you could leave that out entirely really.

If you want to add some freshness to the dish you can dice up a fresh tomato and add that to the top. This is nice if you are serving this oxtail stew of sorts with naan or this is how to cook butter beans. 😉

How to prepare oxtails before cooking

You will want to start off with your pieces thawed or fresh from the butcher. Many times you will have to buy them frozen but ideally they should be defrosted first before preparing them. Then you will want to trim just a bit of the fat from the outsides, only the main excess but leave some on. Rinse them and pat dry with paper towels so the spices will stick nicely.

How to Make Curry Oxtail on Stove

• Cover the outsides with seasoning: your salt, allspice, thyme, curry, bottled or homemade Caribbean seasoning and set aside.
• Chop onions and mince garlic if it isn’t already.
• Heat olive or vegetable oil on medium to high heat, when hot add your diced onions, add the garlic garlic and add the oxtails.
• Turn pieces as they cook to brown oxtails on all sides.
• Add enough water or broth to cover them completely in your pot.
• Bring to a boil, then reduce to simmer, cover with a lid and boil for 2 hours.
• Chop celery and tomato, set aside.
• Mince your ginger and set aside.
• Remove lid, and add celery, minced ginger, ketchup, and hot pepper
  • (be careful not to break the pepper through the cooking process).
• Turn the temperature to medium high heat and cook until the liquid becomes a thick gravy
  • slow cooking this will take approximately 1 hour 30 minutes – 2 hours cooking time until the meat is tender and falling off the bone.
  • **If you are pressed for time you can thicken the gravy with cornstarch or flour instead.
  • Remove the hot pepper(s) at the end.

Taste and add additional salt and pepper or garlic powder if you feel it needs it (likely not). Discard your hot pepper in there. Remove your pieces and allow to cool slightly. Use forks to gently tear meat off of the bone and enjoy as you wish. 

Of course you need ground curry powder as the base but you will want others mixed together with that to coat the outside. This is basically what we used. If you wanted to make spicy, add red pepper flakes. If at the end you find it is too intense you can add coconut milk into the gravy to tone it down. That will add a bit of sweetness and is dairy free too.

Curry Seasoning Recipe

• Salt
• Curry powder
• Caribbean seasoning
• Allspice
• Thyme

What is a good substitute for curry powder?

If you don’t have this on hand from the recipe card you can combine the following 3 ingredients together; 1 tablespoon ground coriander + 1 tablespoon ground cumin + 1 tablespoon turmeric and use that instead.

If all of this sounds too time consuming but you still are craving it you can use the same ingredients but follow our pressure cooker style Instant Pot oxtail recipe timing. This really is a complete meal and I don’t think you need anything on the side, but others might disagree and need something more. Here are a few suggestions;

If you wanted to integrate a vegetable I would highly suggest our cauliflower curry you see right here. With some of the same flavors but on the veggie realm it surely will be a hit. If you want to make something cool to serve on the side I would make our Indian cabbage which is great warm or cool in the fridge and enjoy cold.

What is the Difference Between Jamaican and Indian Curry?

I mean that flavor is kinda’ synonymous with both right? I don’t feel like you need to categorize them either way but in case you’re curious as to what the difference would be is that in Jamaica they use it in powder form. Indian uses more of a curry based sauce. SO I guess this would be a cross between the two like our curry fried chicken.

How to save leftovers

If you have leftovers it saves quite well. Wait until it cools completely first and then store in a sealed bowl in the fridge. To reheat pour into a pot on low-medium heat until bubbling and warm or in the microwave. The latter would take closer to 1.5 minutes or so stirring halfway thru.