Classic Beef Pot Roast
Full of flavor, easy to make, and able to fill the house with mouthwatering aromas, pot roast is a classic weeknight winter feast. An equally humble yet complex wine like Cotes du Rhone, a blend of red grapes (generally syrah, grenache, mourvedre, among others) from southern France, will round off the meal.
If you’re looking for a traditional pot roast recipe, try this 5-star, no-fail version. Cuts of beef that perform well for pot roasting go by many different names: Blade roast, cross-rib roast, seven-bone pot roast, arm pot roast, and boneless chuck roast are all acceptable cuts.
Yield: 10 servings (serving size: 3 ounces roast, about 3/4 cup vegetables, and about 3 tablespoons cooking liquid)
Ingredients
1 teaspoon good quality olive oil (Try Olea, we carry it, and it is amazing)
1 (3 pound) boneless chuck roast, trimmed
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon finely ground black pepper
2 cups coarsely chopped onion
1 cup dry red wine (We suggest using inexpensive, but not “cheap” wines wine to cook with, for this recipe we choose a Cotes du Rhone or a nice dry cab like Lange Twins. After all, one cup for the recipe, the rest for the cook!)
4 thyme sprigs
3 garlic cloves, chopped
1 (14 oz.) can of fat free, low sodium beef broth
1 bay leaf
4 large carrots, peeled and diagonally cut into 1 inch pieces
2 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, peeled and cut into 2 inch pieces
Preparation
Preheat oven to 350º.
Heat olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Sprinkle chuck roast with salt and pepper. Add roast to pan; cook 5 minutes, turning to brown on all sides. Remove roast from pan. Add onion to pan; sauté 8 minutes or until tender.
Return browned roast to pan. Add the red wine, thyme sprigs, chopped garlic, beef broth, and bay leaf to pan; bring to a simmer. Cover pan and bake at 350° for 1 1/2 hours or until the roast is almost tender.
Add carrots and potatoes to pan. Cover and bake an additional 1 hour or until vegetables are tender. Remove thyme sprigs and bay leaf from pan; discard. Shred meat with 2 forks. Serve roast with vegetable mixture and cooking liquid. Garnish with thyme leaves, if desired.
