Dino Short Ribs Recipe

It was a cold and windy Sunday, and I wanted to do something cool, but also eat a comfort food type of meal. Short ribs sounded good, but they’re a bit routine. I took a look in our fresh meat case, and we had some beautiful whole plates of short ribs available. Just like that, I knew what to make: Dino Short Ribs.

This recipe combines a bit of butchering technique that you can do at home to feel like a super talented meat person with an easy cooking technique to make a meal that has an incredibly cool presentation without you having to be a skilled chef. Oh, and the meal tastes amazing! Compared to braised short ribs, these oven roasted dino short ribs have a richer, more concentrated beef flavor, in my opinion, while maintaining a tender texture. A win-win cooking approach for sure!

Dino short ribs sounds bizarre, I know, so here are the answers to (hopefully) all of your questions!

What the heck are Dino Short Ribs?

Dino short ribs are long pieces of beef short ribs cooked as a whole piece instead of being cut into small pieces like a traditional “English-style” short rib. These are long pieces of meat with a visible bone, so they look a bit like something from the Flintstones – thus the name “dino-style!”

By cutting the short ribs dino-style, you’ll help minimize waste as the ribs cook in bigger sections. They’ll pull back from the bones (it’s part of what makes them look cool), but since they’re cooking in bigger pieces, you’ll retain more meat than cooking English-style short ribs.

What cut of meat are Dino Short Ribs?

Dino Short Ribs are a short rib, which comes from the beef chuck, or front shoulder of an animal. They have lots of flavor, as well as abundant marbling (fat) that needs to be cooked to high temperatures so it renders and becomes tender.

This recipe uses an entire plate of short ribs that contains the bones and meat from a 4-rib section of the beef chuck and is about 18″ -24″ long depending on the exact piece of meat. Plates usually weigh around 3.5 – 5 pounds each.

We usually cut short ribs as English-style pieces for braising or cooking in a slow cooker. They are pictured on the right side of the picture above.

The other way we cut short ribs is “Flanken” or “BBQ” style, where we cut thin strips of meat that have several bones on top. This is common in Korean-style BBQ and very delicious! They are pictured on the left side of the picture above.

How did you cut these Dino Short Ribs?

Check out the video above to see how I cut the ribs in a visual manner. I also put a few pictures below.

If you’re more of a text person, here’s the step-by-step instructions.

1. If there is any excess hard fat on the top of the ribs, trim that off. Leave the soft, white fat on for cooking.
2. Take a good knife and cut directly down one of the rib bones to separate one rib’s worth of meat from the other bones.
3. Repeat this for the other bones, cutting on the same side of the rib each time.

You can stop here, or you can french your Dino Short Ribs for an even cooler presentation. I chose to do this, and here’s how you do that:

1. Choose the side of the short rib that has the most fat on it and french this side.
2. Set the short rib bone-side down on a cutting board and cut down to the bone about 1 – 2″ in from the end of the short rib.
3. Put your knife on top of the bone at the end of the short rib, and then make a horizontal cut in to the meat, stopping at where you made the vertical cut in the previous step.
4. Remove that meat from the bone.
5. Trim any meat that may be overhanging the bone on the side, if necessary.

With the meat you french off the bones, you may get a very fatty piece, which is great to use as a cooking oil, or you may get a very beautiful piece of meat. I had a mixture. I used the fat for cooking and the two nice pieces of meat were cooked on the side as bonus boneless short ribs.

What type of knife did you use to cut the Dino Short Ribs?

I used a F. Dick 12″ Butcher Knife to cut the dino short ribs and then french them. I like the weight to it and the touch of flex it has in the blade to work around a bone. These German knives are made for butchers, and they are a great quality. If you’d like to purchase my knife, you can use this link.

Some people may be screaming to use a boning knife, which is maybe a better pick, and what many butchers would use. This is a thinner and even more flexible knife. I know not many people have these at home, so I wanted to do the recipe with a knife that’s very similar to a chef knife you may have at home. It’s never a bad idea to have a boning knife if you like working with meat, and I recommend this F. Dick 6″ boning knife.

How did you season the Dino Short Ribs?

I seasoned these dino short ribs pretty liberally with a mixture of half kosher salt and half black pepper. I think the simple seasoning is great for the rich, beefy flavor of the short ribs. However, you can use a rub or seasoning with more flavors if you’d like. Here are some suggestions:

• Lake Geneva Country Meats Ultimate Steak and Roast Rub is always a winner.
• A Montreal-style seasoning would be a good bet on this beef.
• If you want to bring a roasty and spicy flavor to these short ribs, this Spiceology Cowboy Crust Espresso Chile BBQ Rub is an awesome seasoning blend!

What do you serve with the Dino Short Ribs?

Short ribs are comfort food, even when cooked dino-style! To me that means we must have mashed potatoes and gravy with the meal. I don’t want to tell you that you’re doing it wrong if you don’t have mashed potatoes with these short ribs but…well…you’re doing it wrong!

I also think roasted vegetables are great with this meal, and you can pop in a sheet pan of veggies to roast in the oven after you pull out the short ribs and let them rest before serving. We roasted carrots, which are our favorite, but cauliflower, broccoli, or Brussels sprouts would all be excellent choices as well.

Do you have other short rib recipes?

If short ribs sound good to you, but you don’t want to do this (admittedly a little crazy) Dino Short Ribs recipe, we have plenty more short rib recipe ideas. Some of the recipes are quite traditional, and some are less traditional. Check them out:

• Galbi-style Korean Short Ribs – if you like Korean BBQ, these are the short ribs for you!
• Red Wine Braised Short Ribs – a super traditional recipe for flavorful and tender short ribs.
• Slow Cooker Short Rib Barbacoa Tacos – short ribs make excellent taco meat! Cook them low and slow, then shred and fry the meat. So good!
• Stout Braised Short Ribs – a rich roasty stout beer will bring deep and delicious flavor to short ribs as they braise.

We hope all of your questions are answered and you’re excited to get cooking! If you have more questions or feedback, feel free to leave us a comment below. We’ll do our best to answer your questions. Enjoy and we’ll see you soon at Lake Geneva Country Meats!