The 12 Best Pot Roast Recipes Ever Developed in Our Test Kitchen (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to a perfect roast? ›

The secret to making tender roast beef:

It's all about cooking low and slow. With a cut of meat like this, a longer cook time will give you better, more tender results. Ideally, all roasted meats would be seared on all sides in a hot skillet to develop a golden, delicious crust.

What Is the Best Meat for Pot Roast? The best meat for pot roast is a beef cut with abundant connective tissue, like chuck roast, beef brisket or bottom round roast. This connective tissue called collagen is what makes pot roast melt-in-your-mouth tender.

The boneless chuck roast is among the most popular roasts on the market due to its incredible beefy taste, fat content (it's well marbled), and effortless cooking process. It comes from the shoulder primal (like the pot roast), just in front of the rib section.

Incorporate herbs such as rosemary, thyme, or bay leaves, and spices like garlic powder, paprika, or a hint of cumin. These seasonings build layers of flavor that penetrate the meat during the slow-cooking process. Slow cooking is key to a mouth-watering pot roast.

The meat will cook just fine without searing. (And any surface bacteria will die during cooking anyway.) But I really believe that the depth and complexity of flavor we gain in this searing step is well-worth the extra effort.

Tenderloin. The most tender roast of all—it's under the spine— with almost no fat or flavor. It's tapered in shape, the middle being the "center cut." The labor involved and waste produced in trimming and tying a tenderloin drives up the price. Top sirloin roast.

Though you can use white onions, sweet onions, or red onions, we recommend using yellow ones because of their unique flavor profile. Yellow onions are a widely used onion type in the US and is great with meat dishes such as pot roast, roasted chicken, lamb rack, stew, and more.

Chuck pot roasts have more fat, and therefore more flavor, than those from the round. Beef round roasts suitable for pot roasting are round tip, round rump, bottom round and eye round roasts. Most beef round and chuck pot roasts can be used interchangeably, with only slight adjustments in cooking time.

Rump and Topside are good, lean and tasty roasting joints that are usually wrapped in a layer of fat to keep the meat tender and moist during roasting.

Dried Herbs for Beef. Rosemary, Thyme, Oregano, Sage, and Bay leaves are the best dried herbs to use when cooking beef. To use dried herbs with beef, you should consider which ones you want to include in your recipe and when you should add them.

What is the best seasoning for beef? ›

Spices like onion and garlic, with their inherent pungency, are some of the first that come to mind when it's time to season beef. They are savory and strong, and also easy to come by! Black Pepper goes wonderfully with beef, with its slightly hot bite and the piney aroma. Cayenne is a terrific spice to use with beef.

Some recipes call for liquid, some do not. It mainly comes down to the type of meat you use. Cuts like chuck roast will release more fat and moisture than leaner cuts, so they don't need any water. In addition, the slow cooker itself creates some moisture, which helps keep the meat juicy.

Make the best pot roast with minimum effort and this easy slow cooker recipe! The roast cooks on top of potatoes, carrots, and celery, resulting in incredibly tender meat and veggies that are perfect for dinner any day of the week.

You can use a Crock-Pot, or a cooking bag for your roast. Cook it low and slow! I add beef broth, salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder! For me the slow cooker is used on low heat for 12 hours, basting the roast every hour.

When cooking a roast in the oven, keep it uncovered until roasted to the desired doneness. After removing from the oven, tent with foil and let stand 15 minutes before carving. This allows the juices to redistribute, preventing them from draining out during carving—and preventing dry, disappointing meat.

Baste meat every 30 minutes while it cooks to keep it moist.

This should help keep it from drying out and make it more flavorful. This is especially helpful for larger selections of meat, like roasts, but you can also use it on steak, pork chops, or even a simple chicken breast.

Yes, pot roast absolutely becomes more tender the longer it cooks. Roasts are generally made from tougher cuts of meat, such as chuck or brisket, which contain a lot of collagen, connective tissue, and fat. These tougher tissues require a long cooking time to break down and for the collagen to converts into gelatin.