This recipe for cholent used to be top secret. My husband made it for Shabbat every week and he never divulged the details, even to me! Then one Friday he wasn’t feeling well and rather than give up his weekly cholent, he let me take over. I was so nervous.
It wasn’t a success the first time, but I’ve practiced and now we’re neck and neck. It was his father’s recipe, passed on to his older brother, then passed on to him. It was supposed to go straight to our son but I got it first! I guess you could say I am now an honorary member of the men’s club.
Note: You can substitute the 3 tablespoons chicken consommé mix + 3 cups water with 3 cups chicken broth.
Family Heirloom Cholent
This cholent recipe used to be my hubby’s secret, but I finally got it out of him and now you too can make the best cholent ever.
Servings
8 Servings
Ingredients
- 2 medium potatoes peeled and cut into bite-sized chunks
- 2 medium onions peeled, cut into bite-sized chunks
- 1 2-pound piece of flanken, cut into 4 to 6 pieces
- ½ tablespoon coarse black pepper
- ¾ cup barley
- 1 cup dried light red kidney beans
- 3 tablespoons chicken consommé mix
- 2 tablespoons paprika
- 2 tablespoons honey
- 1 1-pound kishka loaf
- 3 cups water
Instructions
- Line bottom of slow cooker with potatoes and onions.
- Rinse flanken and pat dry. Place pieces around sides of crock pot, with bones on the outside.
- Generously pepper meat.
- Add barley and beans. Shake the pot a bit so some of the barley and beans fall into the spaces between the potatoes and onions.
- Season with consommé mix, paprika, and honey.
- Place kishka on top.
- Pour in water, adding more if necessary, to completely cover all ingredients.
- Cook on low heat overnight, at least 8 hours.
No SALT at all?
There are plenty of salty ingredients.
I think the bones help keep things tender, but it could be marrow bones separate from the meat. Maybe it’s the fat, not really sure but I do find it comes out better with bones.
Sorry we don’t really have specific recommendations
Okay, so how did you solve the issue by you?
Haha I don’t really make cholent very often and when I do I make it in a tin in the oven on a low heat, it has worked better for me, but it’s still tricky and I always hold my breath it won’t be too dry. The last time I made it for some guests and we used a really large heavy tin and I left the oven at 80 degrees celsius and it came out perfect.
Okay, next questions – could this make a difference: How necessary is it to include bones? If I use flanken without bones, will it make that much of a difference? Will the meat still come out tender? What do the bones contribute?
I generally use enough liquid to just about cover all of the food. Certainly all of the meat. And the slow cooker (crockpot) is on low from the beginning.
I find that the juices from the meat leach out into the liquid in the pot, rendering the meat dry, kind of like your fingers if you leave them in the water too long at the pool.
Some slow cookers’ low settings are still just too high for the length of time cholent usually cooks for. I have found that to be the issue for me.
Do you have a recommendation for a good slow cooker/crock pot that is available in Israel? We need a large one (7 liters).
It sounds like the slow cooker might be on too high heat or you aren’t using enough liquid.
Most times I make cholent, I end up with the meat being more or less dried out. Even with flanken. How can I avoid this and have it come out soft and juicy?
I made this recipe for the first time this Shabbos and it came out amazing!! Thank you from London, England!
Flanken is basically short ribs and kishka is a mix of veggies ground up with flour or other starch and mixed with some sort of fat. You can find kishka frozen in most Jewish markets.
What is flaken and Kishka?
Oy! Your cholent is so different from the one I learned from my Lithuanian grandmother! Where is yours originally from? My childhood friend’s mother made hers with lima beans and barley. She was from Poland. My family must have been really poor- ours used no meat, just bones. They called the bones fisnogi. They were beef foot bones, which are difficult to get now; I use beef knuckle. Potatoes, Great Northern beans (way more beans than you used), an onion, bones, and chicken broth. That’s it. No barley, either. Mom used a big ceramic crock with a lid in the oven at a low temperature and cooked it all day. Good for snowy days! How can you eat that heavy meal in hot Israel? Thanks for the video. I was yelling, “Oy! Oy! Kidney beans! Barbeque sauce! Honey!” and scared my husband!
If i have a chulent mix bag, how much should i add?
I think that is just a mix of beans so you can use in place of the kidney beans
The gluten from Barley is an issue for me. Substitute rice perhaps?
Yes rice will work
We use both, depending on what we are looking for, best to try and decide which you prefer
A & H has been kishke and veggie…which do you use? Thank you.
It’s made in the slow cooker and is best after at least 10 hours, usually, this is made for the Sabbath where it can cook for 16 or 17 hours.
MEANT TO ASK 600 “MINUTES”
IS THE 600 HOURS A MISTKAE?
You would have to cut the recipe in half to do so, but then it should work.
Can this be made in a 3qt crockpot?
Not 18 hours in the crockpot? It would not cook for that long. I make mine in the crockpot and have to reheat which really defeats the purpose of cholent.
Been using your vegetarian cholent recipe. Fabulous!
We don’t have experience using the Instant Pot for shabbat, there is a slow cooker setting so you could definitely try that or you could cook at pressure for 1 hour and it will be ready to go and you can then transfer to a warm oven or hot plate to just stay hot until ready to serve. The bigger issue in either method will probably be size and amounts, becuase the average Instatn Pot is smaller than our slow cooker, which is about 6 quarts. Let us know if you do try it and how it works for you.
oyshhhhhhh sorry you can’t try it but wishing you so much success with your diet.
wow that is so odd — I have never heard that or experienced it. The best suggestion I can make is simply to leave them out of this recipe and instead swap with a few cloves of crushed garlic. enJOY!
I see you are using onions. When I put onions in slow cooker recipes it comes out with a very smoky flavor. What am I doing wrong? I really want to try this recipe but I’m worried about the onions
looks amazing! my friend made this recipe and my family LOVED it so much they insisted i try it for shabbat.
I have an instant pot does anyone have any tips for using the instant pot with this recipe?? thank you
I guess I can’t make this wonderful dish since I am following the ketogenic diet.
LOL, yes, before there were slow cookers there were actually communal ovens where people would bring their cholent to cook and you can easily make it in an oven in a heavy pot like a Dutch oven or even a disposable tin which makes for really easy cleanup. When you cook in the oven make sure to cover it very well and place it in an oven at about 200-225 degrees F for the same amount of time.
Enjoy and Shabbat Shalom
Thank you soooo much!!
I don~t have a crock pot. There must have been a time before crock pots when cholent was made. How and how long do I cook it:
The chicken consommé mix has plenty of salt.
No salt required?
It will be ready in 8 hours, but can cook for 18 hours or so which is how most people would use it if cooking it for Shabbat lunch.
Im confused, in the video u say it should cook for 18-20 hours. but in the written part it says 8 hours.
In the oven you can cook it at 200-250F.
You can spread your beans on a sheet pan and quickly look through them for debris.
Maybe you need a new slow cooker? Hope it all worked out
Glad you enjoyed it!
So glad you enjoyed it.
Find Jamie’s Favorite kitchen tools here https://www.joyofkosher.com/2016/01/jamie-gellers-favorite-kitchen-tools/
Hi Jamie!
I’ve always made chulent in a pot on the stove on a blech. After I watched your chulent video I decided to go out and buy a crock pot. Well I made the chulent and it came out to one big mush! Even though I put in 2 lbs of meat I could barely find a whole chunk. It just all disintegrated. I’m wondering if the crock pot I bought is too hot even though I had it on the low setting. Can you please tell me the name brand of your crock pot? I’d like to try making the chulent again.
Thanks,
Aliza
Can your Kishka recipe be a substitute to the 1lbs Kishka Loaf in this recipe? If so, should it be cooked prior or will it cook within the cholent?
You can use that kishke recipe and bake it in the oven in tinfoil and then remove from foil and lay it on top of the cholent.
Check out Jamie’s favorite kitchen tools including slow cookers here http://www.joyofkosher.com/2016/01/jamie-gellers-favorite-kitchen-tools/
what crock pot do I buy???? help
This was amazing and I made the recipe almost exactly the way you described it but with only a small amount of honey. I wouldn’t change a thing! Just a heads up: I bought a brand new Crock Pot slow cooker from Costco for this (the one that costs around $29) and the only settings are HIGH and LOW. I set mine to cook on LOW for 20 hours. The only disappointment is that after 20 hours the kishka was pretty well spread out into everything so we ended up just stirring the whole batch together. Next time I may try cooking it for less time to preserve the kishka separately (on top) and enable us to scoop it onto our helpings like you did in the video. Thanks for the amazing recipe!
Thank you so much for the recipe ! I don’t usually like cholent but this one I loved . Made it last Shabbat and whole my family demanded to repeat it ASAP . I made it with homemade chicken broth.