I don’t dislike pot roast. My favorite sister-in-law can make a perfectly nice pot roast, which she serves over her amazing mashed potatoes. But I myself have never made a pot roast that I considered acceptable. “Barely edible” is the best I’ve ever done. However, a recent exploration of the internet led me to multiple recipes for something called Mississippi Pot Roast. I thought I’d give it a try in the slow cooker.
This is not so much an original recipe as a cobbled-together version of multiple recipes I found. I started with a 3.25 lb chuck roast. Quick side note: the cost of beef is still atrocious. This amount of chuck roast cost me just under $40 at my local budget grocery store. I almost passed out. I was only able to make myself purchase it with the knowledge that I would get multiple meals out of it and that I had to “do it for the blog!”
Ahem. Chuck roast. Pat it dry with paper towel and generously sprinkle it with salt and pepper on both sides. Then sear it in a little oil over medium high heat until there’s a nice brown crust on all sides. It happened that I’d cooked some bacon just before I started making this, so I seared my roast in bacon grease. Yum.
Move it into the crock pot, and sprinkle some ranch dressing mix over the top of it. You can buy this in one-ounce packets at the grocery store, but I opted to buy an ounce of the stuff at my local spice store. I’m not too proud to admit that I go to that shop on the flimsiest excuse…love that place!
Then crack open a jar of peperoncinis, and use 1/4 cup of the brine to start making a little sauce. To this, add soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and corn starch and whisk it all together. Then pour that right over the roast and ranch dressing mix. Fish out as many peperoncinis as you like (I don’t like hot things but I still used about 12 of the little peppers) and sprinkle them over and around the roast. Finally, top with 4 Tbsp of butter, cut into big chunks.
Cover it and cook it on low for as long as it takes to make the meat so tender you can cut it with a fork, usually 6-8 hours. Then take two forks and shred all the meat into the sauce. If you want to extract any peperoncinis that you find, you can do that at this point. They’ve served their purpose.
What you are left with is tender, moist beef in a sumptuously flavorful sauce. I made this for my folks, and served it to them over mashed potatoes, which was a big hit. I also bought a few little hoagie-style multi-grain rolls for sandwiches. I made one of these for myself, spooning on some of the saucy meat and topping with a couple pieces of provolone. It tasted like the very best French-dip sandwich, only without the need to dip, as the au jus was mixed in.
I made the mistake of handing half of my sandwich to my father, so that he could have a bite. I didn’t get that half of the sandwich back. He’s a tricksy one.
This makes somewhere between six and eight generous servings. It could be served as an appetizer if you used sturdy crackers and put a little cheese down first, to keep the juice from making the cracker mushy. It would be fabulous over buttered egg noodles. So many options! Give it a try (if you can make yourself pay for the roast)…you won’t be sorry.
Mississippi Pot Roast
Click here for printable PDF of recipe.
INGREDIENTS
3-4 lb chuck roast
1 oz (or 1 packet) ranch dressing mix
1 jar peperoncinis
1 Tbsp cornstarch
1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
1 Tbsp soy sauce
4 Tbsp (half a stick) butter, cut up into large pieces
2 Tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
DIRECTIONS
Pat the chuck roast dry with paper towel. Salt and pepper both sides generously. Heat up the olive oil in a large skillet pan over medium high heat. Sear the chuck roast on all sides.
Place the roast into a large crockpot. Sprinkle the ranch dressing mix evenly over the top. In a small bowl, combine the corn starch, Worcestershire sauce and soy sauce. Add in 1/4 cup of the brine from the peperoncini jar, and mix thoroughly. Pour over the top of the ranch dressing mix. Place the pieces of butter on top of the ranch dressing mix, along with 6-12 peperoncinis.
Cook on low until the meat easily pulls apart with two forks, anywhere from 6-8 hours. Serve over mashed potatoes or buttered egg noodles.
This is also quite nice as a sandwich, served on a hoagie roll and topped with provolone cheese.
