Cooking Pot Roast in Slow Cooker - Recipe and Instructions
One of the most satisfying and delicious home cooked meals you will ever make is a pot roast cooked in a slow cooker, also known as a crock pot. It is especially wonderful during cold winter months. This easy to make, tender and savory pot roast recipe is sure to be a huge hit with your friends and family. There are many variations to this dish and if you ask 5 different people how they prepare a pot roast, you will more than likely receive 5 different answers. While the ingredients for making pot roast may vary from cook to cook, the method is generally the same: Season then brown a piece of meat on all sides and then slowly cook the meat along with a mix of vegetables in some type of broth mixture until the meat is fork tender.
Choose your Cut of Meat
The very first step to cooking a pot roast is to choose a cut of meat. There are several cuts of meat that will work for pot roast, but some are better than others. I recommend that you visit your local butcher and ask him or her to recommend a good piece of meat for your pot roast. If however, there is no butcher shop close by, visit your local supermarket. Most supermarkets will put helpful labels on the meat telling you what that cut of meat is generally used for. Common cuts of meat used for pot roast are Chuck, Brisket, Top Round and Bottom Round. Most people prefer chuck as the meat of choice, but I find it a bit too fatty and prefer to use Bottom Round. Experiment with different cuts to find the one you like best. For the purpose of this recipe, choose a cut of meat that is 3 - 5 Pounds.
The Vegetables
I like to use a variety of different vegetables when I make this dish. It makes it more interesting than the usual carrots, celery and onions that many recipes call for. The best vegetables to accompany pot roast in my opinion are carrots, celery, onions, garlic, potatoes, turnips and rutabaga. You are free to use all of these or just a few. The choice is yours and nothing is written in stone. I just love the different textures and flavors that these different vegetables provide. Here are the measurement estimates for the veggies I like to use. Use more or less depending on how big your crock pot or slow cooker is. You don’t want to overcrowd the crock pot.
1/2 Cup of Chopped Turnip
1/2 Cup of Chopped Rutabaga
1/2 Cup of Chopped Onion
1/2 Cup of Chopped Carrot
1/2 Cup of Chopped Celery (Look for celery with celery leaves still attached. The leaves impart an excellent flavor to the broth)
3 Garlic Cloves Minced
The Cooking Liquid
People use a variety of liquids to braise a pot roast and add their own unique flavors to this dish. People use a combination of water, beef stock, red wine (choose a wine that you would drink, not a cooking wine) and even beer. I like to use simple water mixed with beef stock. I usually use one part water to one part beef stock and use enough to where the roast is only submerged half way.
Let’s Get Cooking
Ok, we are ready to start cooking this beautiful dish.
Step 1
Season the meat with salt and pepper to taste. In a large skillet over medium heat, brown the meat on all sides, in a tablespoon of vegetable oil.
Step 2
Place your chopped vegetables in the bottom of your slow cooker. Place the meat on top of the vegetables and then pour your liquid over the top.
Step 3
Cover the slow cooker and cook at the lowest setting possible for roughly 8-10 hours. Meat should easily fall apart when pierced with a fork and vegetables should be soft. Remove meat and vegetables and place on a serving platter.
Step 4
Now to make the gravy. Whisk together, in a sauce pan, 1/4 cup of cold water and 2 tablespoons of flour until smooth. Slowly incorporate 1 cup of the hot broth from the pot roast and bring to a simmer stirring constantly until thickened.
Enjoy this pot roast slow cooker recipe!
How to Make a Scrumptious Rub For a Beef Roast
By Melissa Good
Many of us grew up enjoying the fragrance of Mom’s pot roasts in the oven on Sunday afternoons. It was a weekly routine. I myself even carried the tradition on with my own kids. But guess what? One day, my son came to me and pleaded, “Mom, can we pleeeeeeeease have something different for dinner on Sunday?” Yep, my kids had grown a bit weary of the same boring roast, surrounded by pieces of carrots, onions, and potatoes. I needed a new plan of attack. But what other way is there to prepare a pot roast? I gave the kids a break for a few weeks, and then literally spiced up a tired meal. Enter the rubbed 
beef roast.
Preparing a rub for a roast is extremely easy. Choosing the correct cut of beef for your roast is the only thinking required! It’s real easy to get confused when you head to the meat counter in the grocery store. Hmmm, should you use an eye of round roast? How about a rump roast? What’s a brisket? Overwhelming, huh?
Our recommendation for a delicious rubbed roast is a chuck roast. They are well marbled, which adds flavor and makes some great gravy. Sizes vary, so it’s easy to pick one to suit your family’s needs. The key to a tasty melt-in-your-mouth, fall-off-the-bone roast is in the slow cooking.
One of the reasons why Mom’s roast smelled so wonderful all afternoon is because she didn’t try to have it from oven to table in 30 minutes. She roasted it for several hours. If you would like to prepare a delectably-different rubbed pot roast, just follow these simple steps.
• Choose a well-marbled chuck roast. Allow about ½ lb. per person. A roast loses some of its mass as it cooks, so even though many people don’t eat ½ lb. of beef in one sitting, that is the easiest way to gauge what size roast to buy.
• Prepare your rub. Here’s our favorite:
-2 tsp. parsley
-2 tsp. marjoram
-1 Tbsp. basil
-2 ½ tsp. garlic powder
-1 tsp. thyme leaves
-1 tsp. rosemary leaves, crushed
-1 tsp. oregano
Mix spices together in a small bowl. Rub all sides of the roast. Place in refrigerator and let sit for a couple of hours. No need to turn.
• Melt about 2 Tbsp. butter in a roasting pan or a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Be careful not to burn the butter. Quickly sear the roast on all sides. Remove from heat.
• Cover roast, and place in a preheated, 300 degree F.oven. Set the timer for one hour.
• After one hour, turn oven temperature back to 200 degrees F. Leave oven door open until it’s cooled down.
• Let roast slow-roast for at least 4 hours. To prevent the top of the roast from drying out, spoon some of the juices over top occasionally.
• Remove from oven and let sit for about 10 minutes before carving. Serve immediately with your chosen side dishes. But hey….don’t forget the mashed potatoes!
We’ve made this roast with several cuts of beef, but our favorite is the chuck roast. But no matter how you prepare it, slow-cooking beef can turn an inexpensive cut of beef into a mouth-watering meal.
Melissa Good is co-owner of Meal Planning Made Easy a web-based dinnerplanning service. For a low fee, subscribers receive 3 full months worth of menus, recipes, color-coded shopping lists, dinner reviews, and more. Never have to think up new dinner ideas again!
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Beef Roast - It’s What’s for Dinner!
Cooking a Roast
Preparing a roast is quite painless. You can set it in a pan in your oven or for those that truly want an exceptional roast, place your roast on wire rack with the fat of the roast (if there is any) resting on the top, and a shallow pan an inch or so below to catch any juices that fall.
Cooking times will vary by size of the roast and your preference on cooking (rare, medium or well done). It is important to use a thermometer to make sure your roast is fully cooked in the center. You can save much time and make sure your roast is yummy with this easy-to-use accessory. For a rare roast, the temperature should be about 125 degrees F. For a medium roast you should aim for 140 degrees F and for a well done, anything over 155 degrees F is sufficient.
Many roasts are cooked with low to medium heat at about 300 to 325 degrees F. For a 5 pound roast cooked at 300 degrees, expect it to cook for at least 90 to 105 minutes. Following you will find a few of excellent beef roast recipes.
Rump Roast with Home Fries
-5 lb Rump Roast (remove layer of fat if desired)
-1 package of French onion soup mix (dry)
-2 pounds of whole potatoes
-Olive oil
If your rump roast has been refrigerated or frozen, let it thaw and be at room temperature for at least 2 hours. Place rump roast on wire rack with a pan lined with aluminum foil right below it about an inch or so. Cook for about 90 to 110 minutes at about 300 degrees. Use a thermometer and the temperature listing previously mentioned to determine how well you like your beef cooked. About 30 minutes before completion, pour 1 package of French onion soup mix contents on the meat. Yields about 4 servings.
For Home fries, cut the fries into thick home style segments. On a frying pan add olive oil and place potatoes slices in the hot oil. Yields about 4 servings.
Beef Roast on Toast Points
-2 to 3 lb sirloin tip
-1 clove garlic
- Pepper and salt
-4 garlic bread rolls
-1 stick butter for use on garlic bread
Let your roast thaw out and season to taste with garlic, pepper and salt or any of your favorite seasonings. Roast your sirloin tip in the oven at about 325 degrees for about 35 to 45 minutes, once complete slice in moderately thin strips placing them over sliced garlic bread toast points. This recipe yields about 4 servings.
Christine Steendahl, “The Menu Mom”, is well known online for her menu planning services. Get your hands on a copy of another yummy rump roast here: http://www.dinewithoutwhine.com/rump-roast.html
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