Pot Roast with Vegetables (Gluten Free)

Most of you have probably cooked pot roast before, but I’m wondering if you might sometimes be disappointed with the results.  I certainly have been.  Sometimes the meat is fall apart tender and other times it isn’t.  Sometimes the vegetables just get too mushy and I think that is gross.

I have done a good bit of reading various recipes and food blogs about how to cook a pot roast and I am combining some aspects of many of them to create my own.  The “Pioneer Woman” has a blog that devotes a long post to the how-tos of cooking a roast.  I agree with most of what she wrote.  Anyway, the recipe below is mostly hers, with a few little twists of my own.

I think this is such a good meal for a cold day, which is it here today.  Plus, my family is excited that we aren’t having chicken again.  In my defense, chicken was on a great sale recently, and I bought A LOT! So, I’m trying to be frugal.  But, alas, they can only take so many chicken recipes in a row. So, pot roast it is. . .

Pot Roast

Ingredients

• 2 Tablespoons Olive Oil
• 1 whole (4 To 5 Pounds) Chuck Roast
• 2 whole Onions
• 6 whole Carrots (Up To 8 Carrots)
• Salt To Taste
• Pepper To Taste
• 1 cup Red Wine (optional, You Can Use Beef Broth Instead)
• 2 cups To 3 Cups Beef Stock
• 3 sprigs Fresh Rosemary, or more to taste
• 3 cloves of garlic, chopped (my addition)
• 8 oz chopped mushrooms (my addition)
• 6-8 small red potatoes, cut in half (my addition)

Preparation Instructions

First and foremost, choose a nicely marbled piece of meat. This will enhance the flavor of your pot roast like nothing else. Generously salt and pepper your chuck roast.

Heat a large pot or Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Then add 2 to 3 tablespoons of olive oil (or you can do a butter/olive oil split).

Cut two onions in half and cut 6 to 8 carrots into 2-inch slices (you can peel them, but you don’t have to). When the oil in the pot is very hot (but not smoking), add in the halved onions, browning them on one side and then the other. Remove the onions to a plate.

If needed, add a bit more olive oil to the very hot pan. Place the meat in the pan and sear it for about a minute on all sides until it is nice and brown all over. Remove the roast to a plate. With the burner still on high, use either red wine or beef broth (about 1 cup) to deglaze the pan, scraping the bottom with a whisk to get all of that wonderful flavor up. *I made mine with the beef broth because I didn’t have any red wine.  It was great.  Next time, though, I am looking forward to the depth of flavor that the wine will add. *

When the bottom of the pan is sufficiently deglazed, place the roast back into the pan and add enough beef stock to cover the meat halfway (about 2 to 3 cups). Add in the onion, as well as 3 or 4 sprigs of fresh rosemary the chopped garlic.

Put the lid on, then roast in a 275F oven for 3 hours  (for a 3-pound roast) . For a 4 to 5-pound roast, plan on 4 hours. When there was about 45 minutes left, I tossed in the chopped mushrooms, carrots, and new potatoes.  Now, most recipes tell you to put these vegetables in when you first put the pot in the oven.  I disagree because I always ended up with mushy carrots and potatoes.  Yuck (in my opinion).  The potatoes get mealy and the carrots have no texture at all.  So, to solve this, I put the veggies in for the last 45 min -hour and that way they end up perfect and still flavor the dish.

After removing the dish from the oven, take the meat out and put it on a serving dish (I use a 9×13 baking dish or large shallow bowl.  Trim the fat off the meat and discard it.  Many recipes skip this step because the fat tastes good.  But in the interest of us not all having clogged arteries, I say remove it.  The meat is wonderfully flavored already and so so moist.  Now either shred your meat with forks or cut it into large chunks for serving.  I prefer bigger pieces and letting people shred/cut it themselves.  Scoop the vegetables out of the pot and scatter around the meat in your dish.  Lastly, scoop a little of the juices out of the pot and ladle over the meat and vegetables.  You can pour ALL of the broth over the meat and vegetables, but I wouldn’t.  It tastes FABULOUS but it is full of fat and oil from the meat.  Remember at the beginning when you were told to get a piece of meat with lots of marbling?  Well, this is good and bad.  Thankfully, it gave you a nice tender, moist outcome.  But, you can enjoy the meat with a little of the broth, without going overboard and loading yourself with unhealthy fat.

I served ours over brown rice.

Hope you enjoy!