Boiled Dinner

An old-school boiled dinner recipe is one of the most cherished of New England’s traditional meals. If you don’t know how to cook a boiled dinner, it’s exactly what the name suggests: an entire meal simmered together in one pot.

The star ingredient is corned beef, cooked with carrots, potatoes and cabbage. The sturdy long-storage vegetables and salted meat were New England staples in the days before refrigeration. When you taste how well they work together after simmering with the beef, you’ll understand why it’s so beloved here in the Northeast.

Boiled Dinner Recipe Ingredients

• Corned beef brisket: Corned beef is the star of the show in any traditional recipe for boiled dinner.
• Black peppercorns and bay leaves: The black peppercorns and bay leaves provide additional flavors to complement those in the spice packet that comes with the beef.
• Potatoes: Potatoes help make this a sturdy, filling meal, and also absorb much of the beef’s flavor.
• Carrots: As a long-storage winter vegetable, carrots are a standard part of a traditional boiled dinner.
• Onion: The wedges of onion help flavor the cooking water, and the onion itself is eaten as one of the vegetables.
• Green cabbage: Cabbage is one of the few green vegetables that lends itself to long storage, so it became an indispensable part of the traditional boiled dinner.
• Horseradish or mustard: Condiments such as horseradish and mustard are optional, but complement the richness of the beef.

Directions

Step 1: Simmer the corned beef

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Place the corned beef brisket and the contents of its spice packet in a Dutch oven. Add the peppercorns and bay leaves, and enough water to cover the beef. Bring the water to a boil, then reduce the heat, cover the pot and simmer the beef for about two hours or until it’s almost tender.

Step 2: Add the vegetables

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Add the potatoes, carrots and onion, and return the pot to a boil. Reduce the heat, replace the cover and simmer the vegetables for 10 minutes. Add the cabbage, cover the pot again, and simmer for another 15 to 20 minutes or until the vegetables and corned beef are tender. Remove and discard the peppercorns and bay leaves. Slice the corned beef thinly. Serve it with the vegetables and the horseradish or mustard if desired.

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Boiled Dinner Recipe Variations

• Change up the meat: Corned beef is the most traditional option for making a boiled dinner. It’s rich and flavorful, especially if you brine your own brisket, but you have options. A piece of ham, or a ham bone with plenty of meat left on it, works just as well and cooks more quickly. If you have a European-style butcher in your area, a couple of ham hocks (a.k.a. smoked pork hocks) will also do the job, and they tend to be packed with flavor. For a decidedly different twist, you might even opt for fresh beef and simmer a pot roast with your vegetables. That’s good too.
• Root around for seasonal vegetables: Potatoes, carrots and cabbage are the canonical vegetables, which you’ll find in most boiled dinner recipes, but you have options. I grew up in Atlantic Canada, where boiled dinner is equally traditional, and we frequently included rutabagas or parsnips in ours. Other options include celery root (celeriac), kohlrabi, squash and even sturdy long-cooking greens such as kale or collards in place of or alongside the cabbage.

How to Store Boiled Dinner

Your leftover boiled dinner should be transferred to food-safe storage containers and refrigerated as soon as possible after the meal. The food will cool more quickly, and stay safe for longer, if it’s in multiple shallow containers rather than one large one. Depending how much you have left over, you may wish to store the meat and vegetables separately.

How long will my leftover boiled dinner keep?

Your boiled dinner will keep for three to four days in the fridge. For longer-term storage, you can also package and freeze the leftovers for up to three months. Note that the potatoes’ texture may be uneven after thawing, but you can fix that by mashing them after they’re reheated.

Boiled Dinner Recipe Tips

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What else can I serve with a boiled dinner?

Think homestyle comfort food and you can’t go far wrong. Thick-sliced homemade bread or soft dinner rolls are a good complement to the meal. Aside from mustard and horseradish, homemade pickles and relishes are good condiment options. Green tomato relish and pickled beets were my own favorites when growing up on the coast.

Can I make this in my slow cooker or Instant Pot?

Absolutely, and it’s very good either way. Corned beef takes about eight or nine hours on low to be tender enough to serve. The potatoes and carrots need about four hours, so add them halfway through and then put the cabbage on top for the last two hours. Alternatively, you can keep things simple and just make slow-cooker corned beef and cabbage, skipping the other veggies. In your Instant Pot, the corned beef needs one hour at high pressure and a 10-minute rest, then add the vegetables and cook for another five minutes at high pressure. After a second 10-minute rest, release the pressure and serve.

What can I do with my leftover boiled dinner?

Oh, you definitely have options. Making corned beef hash is the obvious choice, though we have lots of other recipes for leftover corned beef as well. The cooking liquid (“pot likker,” if you’re from the South) is packed with flavor, and you can use that as the base for a hearty bean or pea soup. If you have access to good sauerkraut, you can’t go wrong using up the sliced beef in Reuben sandwiches.