How to cook beef neck bones in a crock pot

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Most helpful positive review

Rating: 5 stars

06/25/2009

This sounds like a very good way to tenderize the neckbones so the meat falls away;, but what would you serve it with, my grandmother used to make us neckbones and pinto beans and this recipe is vey similar

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Most helpful critical review

Rating: 3 stars

06/29/2009

I really liked the flavor but there wasn't enough meat on the bones to make it worth the trouble. You need to be a picker of the bones to enjoy this one. I cooked mine for 6 hours and the meat still didn't fall off the bones. So I continued to cook them for 4 more hours (started it at 6:00am) and the meat was still clinging to the bones. As for what to serve it with: I made a brown gray and wide egg noodles with corn on the side. Like I said the flavor was awesome! Just too time consuming.

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43 Ratings

  • 5 star values: 22
  • 4 star values: 11
  • 3 star values: 6
  • 2 star values: 4
  • 1 star values: 0

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Rating: 5 stars

06/25/2009

This sounds like a very good way to tenderize the neckbones so the meat falls away;, but what would you serve it with, my grandmother used to make us neckbones and pinto beans and this recipe is vey similar

Rating: 3 stars

06/29/2009

I really liked the flavor but there wasn't enough meat on the bones to make it worth the trouble. You need to be a picker of the bones to enjoy this one. I cooked mine for 6 hours and the meat still didn't fall off the bones. So I continued to cook them for 4 more hours (started it at 6:00am) and the meat was still clinging to the bones. As for what to serve it with: I made a brown gray and wide egg noodles with corn on the side. Like I said the flavor was awesome! Just too time consuming.

Rating: 5 stars

03/16/2013

Made these tonight. Awesome. I did make a few changes, I omitted the vinegar, my mother is from a deeper south ( Mississippi ) vinegar is just used for canning only. Also omitted the thyme b/c I was out. Used more salt. Pork needs a lot of salt. TG we don't have high blood pressure. I also put texjoy steak seasoning heavily on each pork neck due to slow cooker breaking down the seasoning. I did use the 4 cups of liquid - 2 cups beef broth & 2 cups water. Due to the fact i cooked 7 lbs. The flavor was amazing! Cooked white rice, southern fried cabbage and skillet fried potatoes. Yes a truly southern meal! My family loved it all.

Rating: 5 stars

09/14/2011

My family LOVED these! I grew up on neck bones and I myself have not had any so good. The ONLY thing that I warn anyone about is not to let them slow cook too long. Speaking from experience - All of the meat had fallen off the bone and literally disintigrated in with the fat and grissle making dinner a little more challenging.

Rating: 5 stars

09/11/2009

Great recipe. Authentic Southern taste. Fall off the bone tender flavorful.

Rating: 5 stars

07/08/2012

Cooking neckbones today with cabbage, and baked macaroni and cheese. Did someone say they used pork chops as a substitute for neckbones?? How do you do that? Totally different cooking style.

Rating: 3 stars

08/26/2011

This is a super-cheap and super-easy recipe that can basically be made from pantry ingredients except for the neck bones. The pork is juicy and tender, and from almost four pounds of neck bones, I got about three cups of shredded pork. The nearly four pounds of bones cost me about $6 in central Virginia. The only drawback is the bits of gristle and fragments of bones that I had to spit out nearly every time I ate a helping, even though I tried to carefully pick through the meat after removing it from the bones. I ate pulled pork sandwiches and burritos for several days, so all in all, this recipe will join my other favorite offal recipes.

Rating: 3 stars

08/14/2009

Could not find neck bones, so I used pork chops. It was good, but very watery. Next time less water, and I added more spices, it was too bland. But still good.

Rating: 5 stars

12/04/2012

Made the recipe as written. Pulled the meat out at the end and cut the heat, used the remaining heat to cook turnip greens in the broth. Pulled the meat from the bones and put it in the greens. Served with rice cooked with 3 3/4 cups of chicken broth and 1/4 cup red wine vinegar, butter and salt. Served the greens and meat over a bed of rice.

Rating: 3 stars

08/28/2014

I make it for my fiancé but instead of slow cooker I bake it . I season it well with sazon, adobo, oregano, thyme, cayenne pepper, minced garlic , chopped cilantro, onions and green bell peppers. I add the water and vinegar, cover tight with aluminum foil and toss in the oven to bake for about 2 1/2 hours for 2 lbs of pork neck bone. Baste every half hour ,,remove foil towards end to brown a little and you have an awesome tender finger licking meal,,,oh and I serve it with rice,,today I'm making rice with pigeon peas (arroz con gandules) ... My version of Southern/Latino recipe but trust me its awesome!! Will add pic when its done !

Rating: 5 stars

02/14/2014

Used with beef neckbones and WOW! Simple. Tender. Scrumptious. Served with rotini pasta and kids (ages 2 & 4) gobbled it up! Husband did a happy dance when he realized there was more left in the slow cooker after table was bare. Make sure you have some bread for sopping up sauce!

Rating: 2 stars

01/22/2011

Followed the recipe, but it was watery, and the meat had very little flavor. I was hoping to find a recipe to use an inexpensive cut of meat, but this wasn't it.

Rating: 5 stars

09/10/2010

Very tasty, next time I dont think I'll be putting in as much water though. Gotta love budget-friendly recipes!!!

Rating: 4 stars

09/23/2012

Delicious!!! I made them for my mother who usually and she loved it. It took way longer than suggested as it took 7.5 hours to cook. Yes, the meat will be watery if left alone but I added a bag of soaked black eyed peas about 2.5 hours before it was done. It was very flavorful!!!

Rating: 5 stars

07/17/2014

This recipe was perfect, Very similar to the recipe my husbands aunt uses for the family get togethers (she always brings a crockpot full of pork bones) I added green bell peppers and cajun seasoning along with some fresh minces garlic.... I cooked about 6 lbs of the pork neck bones. served with rice and southern green beans! YUM

Rating: 4 stars

02/29/2012

While I liked the flavor of this recipe, I would not recommend the neck bones! They were very fatty and had a lot of not so great parts. The meat was tender and I did halve the water per other comments. I would use this recipe on another cut of pork no problem!

Rating: 4 stars

03/17/2013

This recipe was great and easy! Will be a go to in the future.

Rating: 4 stars

08/08/2013

Interesting idea and the smell was worth waking up to but the recipe seemed incomplete. I had to separate the neck bone from the liquid and cook down the broth. I pulled what little meat there is off the bones and added it back to the reduced broth. I re-seasoned it, thickened it and then served it over rice. The country kid in you will then come alive.

Rating: 5 stars

04/15/2015

This was easy and it tasted great. I used chicken brother instead of water and added a bay leaf and thyme. I also added a can of gravy at the end. Mmmmm. Thanks for the recipe.

Rating: 5 stars

02/05/2018

Made in Instant Pot electric pressure cooker. Followed recipe as written using about 4 lbs neck bones. Set timer for 55 minutes at high pressure and meat was falling off bone tender! I’ve never made neck bones but saw a package on sale for $.97/lb so couldn’t pass it up. Served with rice and spouse and I enjoyed very much. Yum! Win-win; very inexpensive but very tasty too.

Rating: 4 stars

01/14/2013

I ended up with extra fluid too. I drained the fluid and let it cool, first on the counter and then in the regrigerator, removed the grease that collected on the surface and replaced some of the water used to cook rice with the de-greased fluid. This recipe was then served over that rice.

Rating: 2 stars

05/16/2015

THere just wasn't enough flavor. I has to add much more garlic, thyme, salt and it still wasn't enough. I added soy sauce, and it helped, but overall I think I am just going to toss it. it is just kinda greasy blah. If it had better flavor I would call it rich... but here the mouth feel is just not enough. Plus the work of separating out the pieces of cartilage is extra work. I think I will stick with a bone in pork butt. The bones add flavor but are big and easy to remove.

Rating: 4 stars

03/14/2017

these were so tasty.. i made only minor alterations based on preference.. subbing oregano for the thyme and cider vinegar for the white.. i was surprised they were as tender as they were at 4 hours.. i took the neck bones out and then used the liquid to cook some black beans in.. added the meat once the beans were done and a bit of seasonings.. so delicious! this came out so good i brought in a small tupper to my boss who is a big foodie.. she absolutely loved them and told me next time we have a potluck i have to bring this in.. ty so much for the recipe

Rating: 4 stars

09/23/2016

Yes, will make again, I had more than 3 pounds therefore they were a little salty by not adding more water. Also, I also cooked longer than 4 hrs, cooked around 6 1/2 hrs to be tender.

Rating: 4 stars

12/01/2019

I followed the recipe exactly except I didn’t have dried thyme. We still thought it tasted fantastic!

Rating: 4 stars

09/06/2018

I cooked this a week ago and they turned out great. Added nothing to the recipe and definitely cook again. My hubby and I enjoyed them we even did leftovers!!!

Rating: 4 stars

01/29/2017

I'm just starting out with recipes. I love this one and it was very easy to do. Thank you for sharing.

Rating: 3 stars

08/11/2016

Maybe I did something wrong (I don't know how) but it didn't turn out very well. I did make a roux to thicken it, so that may be what it was. Will try again with hopefully better results. Also made in Dutch oven instead of slow cooker. Peace out.

Rating: 2 stars

01/21/2019

It was to watery and bland. I needed to add way more salt and other spices and it still wasn't great. Also 4 hours was not enough time. I had to add another two hours.

Rating: 5 stars

03/27/2018

I had no vinegar or thyme. I used cumin instead. The cooking time was perfect. Meat really did fall off the bones. My parents had been asking for these for quite awhile. They loved them. Thank you for the recipe. So easy and very tasty.

Rating: 5 stars

05/28/2019

Came out great! It was very flavorful it brought us back to childhood!

Rating: 4 stars

02/05/2022

I cooked Them for an extra hour and that made all the difference. It is delicious and I've made it many times with turkey necks.

Rating: 5 stars

10/28/2016

I've made this many times, finally rating it -- so easy and so good. A three-season go-to. Perfect just as it is.

Rating: 5 stars

12/09/2019

My 7 year old son made it. He was so very proud of himself. It was very tasty. And he'll forever remember this recipe. Because it was his first cooking experience.

Rating: 5 stars

04/17/2020

I absolutely loved this recipe that I made today and just finished demolishing my plate. I cooked with all provided ingredients but added 7 cups of water and cooked from 12:30 p.m -5:00p.m. My Turkey Necks fell off the bone! Thank you sooo much for this recipe.

Rating: 3 stars

08/26/2021

I cooked it as written. My personal taste just didn’t like the taste of this meat.

Rating: 2 stars

04/12/2017

My cooking was altered a bit. First of all I had 4-lbs. of neck bones, seasoning with a generous amount of kosher salt and course ground black pepper, a couple Tbs. dried onion flakes, 1-2 Tbs. flour to develop a roux. Heating the dutch oven on the stove to first brown the meat, than instead of using a slow cooker I put dutch oven into 375deg oven for 40 minutes. Adding a halved yellow onion, garlic and vinegar to mixture and returned to oven to cook at 275-300 for around 4 hours. The amount of bones was one thing, but that there were bone slivers throughout, well, that's a whole different issue. The connective tissue and fat were fully anticipated, but finding large arteries was quite unappealing. I've done Ox Tail in the past and presumed this would be essentially the same deal, but it was surely not. This recipe as written left the dish very bland, even after adding in a couple other items to try to bump it up, it was still just a very fatty and unappealing dish to want to try it again. The shards of bones were ultimately the deal breaker, I can't feed my kids this stuff, unless I am prepared to possibly have to rush them to the hospital after swallowing SHARP tiny bone edges. I spent a LONG time sifting out bones, but even then, when I made up a bowl for myself, I still had to be cautious with EVERY bite that I didn't stab my self in the roof of the mouth, between teeth, or worse, swallow one.

How much water do you put in a crock pot for Neckbones?

Pork needs a lot of salt. TG we don't have high blood pressure. I also put texjoy steak seasoning heavily on each pork neck due to slow cooker breaking down the seasoning. I did use the 4 cups of liquid - 2 cups beef broth & 2 cups water.

How long does it take Neckbones to cook in a pot?

Cooking your neck bones in a crock pot Cooking the neck bones on low for 8-10 hours should leave you with the tenderest, most delicious meat ever. You will also have excellent pork bone broth. You can also opt to cook them for 5-6 hours on a high setting.

How long does it take for neck bones to cook?

Bake in the preheated oven for 2 hours, basting every 30 minutes and recovering with the foil every time you baste. Remove the foil and continue cooking until neck bones are golden brown, about 45 more minutes.

Can you cook beef neck bones like oxtails?

Neck bones are one of my favorite ingredients to cook with and this recipe proves how delicious they can beef. In terms of cuts of beef, they are just as flavorful as short ribs or oxtails but come at a fraction of the cost.