How to Cook Frozen Short Ribs

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How to make fresh or frozen pressure cooker short ribs in your Instant Pot or Ninja Foodi! Tender with an amazing sauce you’ll love.

I wasn’t sure how good these pressure cooker short ribs were going to turn out but wow! So good I tried two different sauces and will share them both here today. Fabulous Ninja Foodi recipe you can make easily too. (affiliate links present)

Instant Pot Frozen Short Ribs
Ninja Foodi Short Ribs
Instant Pot Short Ribs
Short Ribs in Pressure Cooker Recipe
Pressure Cook Short Ribs Recipe
Instant Pot Beef Short Ribs
Ninja Foodi Frozen Short Ribs
Frozen Short Ribs in Pressure Cooker
How to Cook Frozen Short Ribs
Instant Pot Frozen Ribs
Instant Pot Beef Short Ribs Recipe

Instant Pot Frozen Short Ribs

Yes you can make this as an easy Instant Pot recipe too. I did the second go around as you can see, my aqua pot below. Any pressure cooker pot will do, we aren’t bias. 😉

You only need the high pressure function really and they all have that one. Use our homemade sauce and timing for fork tender meat even your kids will love.

If you too are obsessed with your pressure cooker and air fryer machine, here are a few resource to start with:

You can bookmark our Ninja air fryer recipes page, we add to that weekly.
Here’s an air fryer cooking times chart here for your fridge.
Be sure to save this link to Instant Pot recipes for beginners too. You can use any of those in your pot too.
Grab a set of wooden utensils to work with. They are great so your pot doesn’t get scratched!
Then join our Facebook group where you can share and find more ideas you’ll love. Thousands of others share easy recipe ideas.

We share above how to cook all sorts of frozen meat in a Ninja Foodi above, this was the last one I needed to add. I had a bunch of short ribs left from buying meat in bulk online and wanted to make them fork tender.

Ninja Foodi Short Ribs

I had tried them before but they just weren’t right, but I kept trying. For me, pressure cooker ribs of any kind need to be so tender that they almost fall off the bone. This cook time was perfect.

Then I moved on to testing how long to cook frozen ribs in Instant Pot. It took a little longer but turned out just as good. You’d never know when finished they were rock hard an hour before.

Instant Pot Short Ribs

We will start with defrosted and/or fresh ribs.

What is the difference between ribs and short ribs?

They are like their name, shorter than the other. About half as long they don’t have as much meat and are cut from either the chuck or plate with rib meat.

Can you cook short ribs too long?

I mean I guess you could if you cooked it like twice as long but this is different than typical beef pieces. Unlike steak this cut actually gets more tender the longer it is cooked.

Do you cook beef short ribs bone side up or down?

In the oven it is recommended that they’re down. In a pressure cooker it really doesn’t matter, they’ll be cooked under high pressure all the way around.

If they aren’t frozen you can saute them to get a little sear on the outside at the beginning. Skip if they’re rock hard, they’ll still be delicious.

Short Ribs in Pressure Cooker Recipe

Season the outsides with at least salt and pepper but really you can sprinkle on whatever you want. If you’re new to pressure cooking you need to learn how to deglaze your Instant Pot.

I have a photo below showing you how little bits will get stuck on once you take the meat out. Just use a bit of broth to scrape that off once the pot is set to cancel/off.

Pressure Cook Short Ribs Recipe

I have TWO different sauces, the one below has more Asian inspired flavors. The other is in the recipe card below and tastes more like stew flavors. Both are excellent!

Ingredients for Sauce Recipe #1

You can try them both or read the ingredients and decide which you think you’d like more. One is more of an Asian sauce, the other is more like a thick gravy you’d find over a roast.

We’re going to start with defrosted or fresh 2 pounds of beef short ribs cut into 2 rib sections. This makes them fit better so you can sear the outsides a bit.

Instant Pot Beef Short Ribs

Ingredients

salt and pepper
3 tbsp olive oil
1 onion diced
1-2 carrots cut into large chunks
2 tbsp minced garlic
1/2 tsp garlic salt
1 c beef broth could swap some out for red wine
1/4 tsp oregano and jarred basil
1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp hoisin sauce

Ninja Foodi Frozen Short Ribs

Instructions

Add olive oil into pot and set to saute. Season both sides of ribs well with salt and pepper. Put into pot and get a GOOD sear on both sides of rib pieces. Then remove.

Use 1/4 c of your beef broth or wine to deglaze the pot well by scraping stuck on meat off bottom of pot. Here is a picture showing you how this is done. It is something you must do so you don’t get the burn notice.

Then add carrots, garlic, garlic salt and diced onions into pot and saute in juices left in pot (still set to saute) until they soften slightly. Then turn pot off.
Pour remaining broth or wine into your pot, then put ribs back in on top of veggies. Sprinkle oregano and basil on top of them, followed by Worc. sauce, and then pour hoisin sauce on top of each piece.
Close lid and steam valve and set pot to high for 40 minutes (for bone in 2 lbs., if using a lot more time needs to be increased)
Allow pot to naturally release steam for 15 minutes.
Ribs should be fall off the bone tender at this time when you remove them.
If you want sauce to be thicker, set pot to saute again and in a small bowl whisk together 2 tbsp of cornstarch with some hot liquid from pot until smooth.

When liquid is bubbling add this thickener into pot and stir. Will thicken in a few minutes, then turn pot off and spoon over meat to serve. You can see the end result above. This is a rich teriyaki like sauce that is pretty amazing.

Frozen Short Ribs in Pressure Cooker

But if you have rock hard frozen meat you’ll skip the saute process. NO worries, they will still turn out amazing. I used a different sauce combination this time, just because. I will share how to make that below.

Electric pressure cooker short ribs recipe #2 can use fresh or frozen. Both turn out melt in your mouth tender. The only difference is a slight change in cook times.