Sop Buntut: Indonesian Clear Oxtail Soup With Deep, Clean Flavor
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Sop Buntut is an Indonesian clear oxtail soup that offers flavor and delicacy. It is made with simple ingredients, and its flavor centers on savory oxtail.
Sop Buntut
Sop Buntut is an Indonesian clear oxtail soup that offers flavor and delicacy. It is made with simple ingredients, and its flavor centers on savory oxtail.
So the soup itself has a light and runny texture. And it looks cloudy too. Yet, it is packed with the goodness of the oxtail broth.
And by slow-cooking the oxtail with whole spices and herbs, you get a flavorsome soup with melt-in-the-mouth tender meat.
If you want more flavourful oxtail pieces, you can even deep-fry them after you finish cooking them in the broth. This is by way of people making Sop Buntut Goreng, which literally translates to “fried oxtail soup”.
However, this recipe I’m sharing shows how to make the basic soup without deep-frying the oxtail in the end.
Why You’ll Love This Oxtail Soup Recipe
- Oxtail is one of the most flavorful cuts you can cook with. The high collagen content breaks down during the long simmer, giving the broth a natural body and richness that you can’t fake with stock cubes. The meat itself becomes tender enough to pull off the bone with minimal effort.
- The broth stays clear but tastes anything but plain. Unlike creamy soups that build flavor with dairy or coconut milk, Sop Buntut builds its flavor entirely through time and high-quality ingredients. The result is a clean, golden broth that’s genuinely complex underneath its simplicity.
- Nutmeg and clove do the quiet heavy lifting. These two spices show up in small amounts but shape the soup’s overall flavor. They add warmth and a subtle sweetness that rounds out the savory oxtail without competing with it.
- Slow cooking is the only real requirement. There’s no complicated technique here. The preparation is minimal, the stove does the rest. Give it at least an hour, and the transformation is dramatic. Rush it, and you’ll notice the difference immediately.
- It reheats exceptionally well. The broth actually improves overnight as the flavors continue to develop. Make it a day ahead if you’re cooking for guests; it will taste better and save you time when it matters.
- The garnishes add more than just presentation. Fried shallots bring crunch and a toasted sweetness.
- It’s a dish that teaches you to trust the process. Nothing about Sop Buntut is instant. But every step, the initial blanching, the long simmer, the careful skimming, produces a noticeably better result. It’s practical kitchen patience with a clear payoff.
- More accessible than it looks. Oxtail is widely available at most butchers and Asian grocery stores, often at a lower price than premium cuts. You’re getting exceptional flavor from an affordable, underused ingredient, which is exactly the kind of cooking worth doing more of.
How Do You Eat Oxtail Soup?
You eat this heartwarmingly delicious Sop Buntut with hot plain white rice. Because rice is the main staple in Indonesia. Naturally, most main dishes will be enjoyed with rice.
So you will get the filling carb from the rice grain and the protein from the oxtail soup. In short, your nutrition intake for the day is sorted.
And if I can recommend, for those who love chilies and spices, try adding a spoonful or two to your soup. It’s just delicious.
What You Need to Make a Flavorsome Sop Buntut
In total, you only need 10 ingredients: oxtail, onion, ginger, garlic, nutmeg, ground white pepper, cloves, spring onions, tomatoes, and salt. Well, maybe 11 items if I have to include water in the list.
Optionally, you can add crispy fried shallots when serving. It gives a lovely extra fragrance and flavor to the soup.
How To Make Sop Buntut
- Boil 6 cups (1.5 liters) of water, then place the oxtail chunks in it. Cook until the water reaches a boil again, and you can see the impurities/dirt from the meat floating on the surface. Turn off the heat, drain the oxtail, and rinse it. Set aside.
- Boil about 8 cups (2 liters) of water, or use hot water from the kettle. When it’s boiling, add the onion, garlic, nutmeg, ground white pepper, ginger, cloves, and salt. Let it cook for about 5 minutes before adding the oxtail.
- Cook the oxtail at moderate-high heat until it reboils. Then turn the heat down to the lowest. And slowly cook the oxtail at moderately low heat until the meat is tender, and the soup is cloudy. It takes approximately 45-60 minutes. But the longer the better. Check the taste.
- Put the tomatoes and spring onions in. Then turn off the heat, but leave the pan lid on for about 2-3 minutes before serving your Sop Buntut.
- Garnish the oxtail soup with fried shallots before serving.
Top Tips on Making the Best Sop Buntut
- Clear the oxtail properly of gristle and excess fat. Also, wash and rinse it until the water runs clear, with no trace of blood.
- Rinse the oxtail after the first boil to remove impurities.
- To save time, use the hot boiling water from the kettle.
- Boil and simmer the spices for about 5 minutes to infuse the water with spice aroma and flavor before adding the oxtail.
- Once the water reboils after adding the oxtail, turn the heat to the lowest setting and let the soup simmer slowly.
- You can’t overcook the oxtail soup. In fact, the longer you cook the soup, the better flavor you get from the oxtail. You can tell from the soup’s color. The cloudier it is, the more gelatinized the soup is. And that’s what we want. As it means, the soup is rich and savory.
Storing Matter
Once your oxtail soup has completely cooled, you can store it in a tight-lidded container and keep it in the fridge for 4-5 days.
You can also freeze it for 6-8 weeks. The day before serving, take it out of the freezer and leave it in the fridge/refrigerator to thaw. And make sure you reheat it until it is piping hot.
When your soup has thawed, have it within 3 days and do not refreeze.
Sop Buntut: Indonesian Oxtail Soup
Equipment
- Sieve or
- Colander
Ingredients
- 52.9 ounces oxtail cut into 2 inches chunks ( you can ask your butcher).
- 2 medium brown/ yellow onions peeled and chopped.
- 5 cloves garlic finely sliced.
- ¼ nutmeg seed.
- 1 teaspoon ground white pepper see the note.
- 2 teaspoons salt.
- ½ inch ginger peeled.
- 5 cloves.
- 2 tomatoes cut in chunks.
- 2 stalks scallions/ green onions/ spring onions finely sliced.
- Fried shallots.
- 14 cups water.
Instructions
- Boil 6 cups/ 1.5 litres of water, then place the oxtail chunks in it. Cook until the water reaches the boiling point again, and you can see the impurities/dirt from the meat floating on the surface. Turn the heat off, drain the oxtail and rinse it. Set aside.
- Boil about 8 cups / 2 litres of water, or you can use hot boiling water from the kettle. When it’s boiling, add the onion, garlic, nutmeg, ground white pepper, ginger, cloves, and salt to it. Let it cook for about 5 minutes before adding the oxtail in.
- Cook the oxtail at moderate-high heat until it reboils. Then turn the heat down to the lowest. And slowly cook the oxtail at moderately low heat until the meat is tender and the soup is cloudy. It takes approximately 45-60 minutes. But the longer the better. Check the taste.
- Put the tomatoes and spring onions in. Then turn the heat off but leave the pan lid on for about 2-3 minutes before serving your Sop Buntut.
- Garnish the oxtail soup with fried shallots before serving.
Notes
- Ground white pepper is more-preferable for this soup recipe because it has a sharper taste and smells that you only need a little. However, if it’s not available to you, you can swap it with ground black pepper. Just check the taste and add more if needed.
- If you like, once you finish cooking the soup, you can take the oxtail pieces out and deep-fry them. This way, your dish will be called Sop Buntut Goreng, which literally means fried oxtail soup. You serve it on a plate together with the rice and a bowl of soup/broth on the side.
Nutrition
Devy founded So Yummy Recipes and Drizzling Flavor to share her love of food after exploring various cultures and cuisines for more than two decades. Her mission is to help others easily recreate traditional and non-traditional food with readily available ingredients. Her works have been featured in Reader’s Digest, Al Jazeera, MSN, Yahoo, Bon Appétit, and more.
How funny I should stumble across this recipe, I was only just talking about oxtail soup last weekend and wondered how to make it, this is getting saved for future reference.
It means the universe hears you :-). Hope you’ll like it.
Sounds delicious!
And it tastes delicious too.
Tried this recipe today for my dinner and it was lovely!
Thank you. I’m happy that you like your Sop Buntut.