This Slow Cooker Savoury Beef Pot Roast was just the thing when the fall winds turned chilly and damp. A one-pot dinner you can ‘fix and forget’!
This recipe, as many slow cooker recipes do, calls to brown the roast before transferring to the slow cooker. If you are in a real hurry you don’t have to but you will get more flavour out of it if you do.
And the good news here is – the tougher and therefore cheaper cuts of beef will be best for a pot roast cooked low and slow. Choose Chuck roast, Cross Rib Roast or Boneless Blade Roast. You want something with lots of marbling. That fat and tissue is going to break down slowly and you will be left with a fall-apart-tender-juicy-flavourful hunk of meat.
You could also use stewing beef in place of a roast.
Leaner cuts do not work well in a long braise situation because they don’t have the marbling mentioned above and they end up tough and dry despite the liquid they have been braised in.
You can toss in whatever vegetables you like so all your dinner is ready at once. Sturdy root vegetables like potatoes, carrots onions, turnip, rutabaga all work well. Potatoes can be funny in a slow cooker. Make sure the potatoes are well ensconced in the braising liquid.
More delicate vegetables like peas – you can add them but I would only do it about an hour or less before serving.
You will have lots of jus after this cooks that you can drain off and thicken with a slurry. If you use cornstarch to thicken you will also have a gluten free meal.
You can fix this is in the morning and come back 7-8 hours later to a delicious home cooked meal!
Ingredients
Roast
- 3 lb pot roast chuck or cross rib preferred
- 3 tsp Lemon Pepper
- 3 tsp sweet paprika
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp dried rosemary or 2 sprigs fresh
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
- 2 Tbsps olive oil
- 1/4 cup red wine optional
Stewing Vegetables
- 12 medium potatoes peeled or scrubbed well and halved
- 1 yellow onion peeled and rough chopped
- 8 carrots peeled and cut in half lengthwise
- 4 turnip peeled and quartered
- 3 1/2 cups beef broth
- 3 Tbsp water
- 2 Tbsps corn starch
Instructions
Roast
- Combine spices and rub on all sides of the roast.
- Heat olive oil in a skillet. When hot sear all sides of the roast about 1 minute each side. Add the wine to the pan if using after all sides are seared. Let is simmer about 2 minutes. It will be substantially reduced.
Stew
- Put vegetables into a large slow cooker. Add beef in the center of the slow cooker amidst the vegetables.
- Take a bit of the beef broth to deglaze the pan you used to sear the meat. Add the deglazed liquid and remainder of the broth to the slow cooker.
- Cook on low 7-8 hours.
- To thicken the broth- put cornstarch in a small covered container, add the water (always add the water to the corn starch and not the other way around). Shake well. You have 2 options here: 1) add the cornstarch slurry to the slow cooker about an hour before the end of the cook time. or 2) Remove the meat and vegetables just before serving and transfer the braising liquid to a pot on the stove. Add the corn starch slurry, bring to a boil and simmer until the gravy has thickened.