Instant Pot Beef Ribs — The Comfort Meal That Still Fills the House with Love

Two months. The two-month mark. I'm counting months the way I counted weeks of pregnancy, the way I counted weeks of Paul's diagnosis — the calendar as a measure of distance traveled, of time survived. The lockdown continues. Minnesota is cautious, closed. I don't leave the house except for the garden and the walks with Sven. The walks are longer now — twenty minutes, sometimes thirty. I walk the neighborhood and I see the lake from the high points and the lake is blue and the ships are running and I stand on the sidewalk and I watch the ships and I try to identify them and I can't and I laugh at myself because Paul would identify them and Paul would tell me and I'd pretend not to care and I miss pretending not to care. The cooking has settled into a rhythm. Breakfast: coffee and toast with jam. Lunch: soup from the freezer or a sandwich. Dinner: something real — a meal, cooked, eaten at the table, two places set. The dinners rotate: meatballs Monday. Soup Wednesday. Fish Friday. The structure is my scaffolding. The scaffolding holds me up. I started cleaning out Paul's study — the room that became his bedroom, that's now neither. The books are still on the shelves. The reading stand is still by the window. His glasses are on the nightstand. I picked up the glasses on Wednesday and I held them and they were smudged — they were always smudged, Paul's glasses were perpetually smudged, he cleaned them with his shirt and the shirt was never clean enough — and I held the smudged glasses and I put them back and I walked out of the room. Not yet. The room is not ready. I'm not ready. The glasses stay. I made a comfort dinner: pot roast. Paul's meal. The meal I make when the family is together, except the family isn't together and the pot roast is for one and the leftovers will feed me for a week. I seared the beef, I added the vegetables, I poured the stock, I put it in the oven for four hours. The house smelled like love. The house smelled like Paul. I ate at the table. One plate of pot roast. One empty plate. Two glasses. One filled. One empty. Sven had the gravy that pooled at the bottom of the roasting pan. I spooned it over his kibble. He ate it with the enthusiasm of a dog who has been waiting twelve years for this exact moment. Two months. The glasses are smudged. The pot roast is in the oven. The table is set. I'm here. Still here. Still cooking.

Pot roast has always been Paul’s meal—the one I made when the whole family crowded around the table, when the oven ran for four hours and the house smelled like everything good. I’m not ready to change that, but on the harder weeks, when I need that same warmth without the full ceremony, I’ve started turning to beef ribs in the Instant Pot: the same deep, savory comfort, the same gravy pooling at the bottom for Sven, the same feeling that something real is happening in this kitchen. It’s not a replacement—nothing is—but it holds me up the same way the scaffolding does.

Instant Pot Beef Ribs

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 45 minutes | Total Time: 1 hour | Servings: 4

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 lbs bone-in beef short ribs
• 1 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp black pepper
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp smoked paprika
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1 medium yellow onion, roughly chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 medium carrots, cut into 2-inch pieces
• 2 stalks celery, cut into 2-inch pieces
• 1 cup beef broth
• 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 tbsp tomato paste
• 1 sprig fresh rosemary (or 1/2 tsp dried)
• 1 sprig fresh thyme (or 1/2 tsp dried)

Instructions

1. Season the ribs. Pat the beef short ribs dry with paper towels. Combine salt, pepper, garlic powder, and smoked paprika, then rub the mixture evenly over all sides of the ribs.
2. Sear for depth of flavor. Set the Instant Pot to “Sauté” mode and add olive oil. Once shimmering, sear the ribs in batches, 2–3 minutes per side, until a deep brown crust forms. Remove and set aside.
3. Build the base. Add the onion and celery to the pot and cook, stirring, for 2–3 minutes until softened. Add the garlic and tomato paste and cook 1 minute more, until fragrant.
4. Deglaze and add liquids. Pour in the beef broth and Worcestershire sauce, scraping up any browned bits from the bottom of the pot. These are where the flavor lives.
5. Add remaining ingredients. Nestle the seared ribs back into the pot. Tuck in the carrots, rosemary, and thyme around the meat.
6. Pressure cook. Secure the lid and set the valve to “Sealing.” Cook on High Pressure for 40 minutes. Allow a natural pressure release for 15 minutes, then carefully switch the valve to “Venting” to release any remaining pressure.
7. Rest and serve. Transfer the ribs to a plate and let rest for 5 minutes. Skim any excess fat from the surface of the braising liquid—then spoon that rich, fragrant gravy generously over the ribs and vegetables before serving.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 480 | Protein: 38g | Fat: 32g | Carbs: 8g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 620mg