Slow cooker pot roast with cranberries and orange
- Preparation 15 min
- Cooking 8 h 15 min
- Servings 4
- Freezing Absolutely
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🍁 My take on a holiday braise
Dried cranberries, orange zest, freshly grated ginger. Written out like that, it reads like turkey stuffing. That is not an accident: this is my take on a holiday braise, except the thing in the middle of the plate is a beef chuck roast instead of a bird. Same family as my clementine and cranberry turkey, same sweet and tangy direction.
But do not save it for December. A Tuesday in October, a Sunday in February, it works exactly the same. It is really, really good.
🍶 Soy sauce in a pot roast
Go read the other pot roast recipes out there. Onion soup mix, beef broth, mustard and maple. Soy sauce, never.
That is the piece doing the heavy lifting here. A quarter cup in the bottom of the slow cooker gives you the deep savoury base that other recipes chase with a bouillon cube. Put that next to the zest and juice of a whole orange, grated ginger and a handful of dried cranberries, and the sauce lands sweet, salty and sharp all at once. My orange-braised veal cheeks run on the same base: soy, ginger, orange, veal stock, red wine. Two very different cuts, one sauce I like far too much to use only once.
🍲 You leave in the morning and you do not touch it
There are two chuck roasts on this site and they take over your day in completely different ways. My Guinness braised beef chuck roast braises for three and a half hours in a Dutch oven on the stove, and you need to be home for it. This one gets seared before you leave, the lid goes on, and it waits for you.
Honestly? The slow cooker is not my favourite tool. When I have the choice, I do this one in the oven in a big enameled cast iron Dutch oven, and that version is written out in full in the tips below. But when you walk out the door at seven in the morning and you want dinner ready when you get back, nothing beats closing that lid.
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🔥 Searing takes longer than you think
I told myself ten minutes for years, because ten minutes sounded reasonable.
It is not. Count on 12 to 15 minutes total for a 1 kg roast, hot skillet, medium-high heat, a thin film of oil. Turn the meat onto each face and let the crust set before you move it again. Rush it and the beef sticks, then you tear off the colour you just built.
Do not skip this because the roast is about to cook for eight hours anyway. A slow cooker never browns anything, it only heats. Every bit of roasted flavour in this recipe happens in those fifteen minutes in the pan, before the lid ever closes.
🍶 Soy sauce is my onion soup mix
A quarter cup, no more. It gives you the salty backbone that old family recipes pulled out of a packet. It does not taste Asian in the finished dish, I promise. The soy disappears into the red wine and the veal stock and leaves only depth behind.
🔥 My oven version, at 350°F
Straight up: the slow cooker is not my favourite tool. Given the choice, I make this roast in the oven.
Preheat to 350°F (180°C). Sear the meat exactly the same way, 12 to 15 minutes, but do it right in a big enameled cast iron Dutch oven instead of a skillet. Set the roast aside, cook the carrot, celery, onion and garlic for 4 to 5 minutes in that same pot, deglaze with the red wine and scrape the bottom. Return the meat, add the rest of the ingredients and enough veal stock to come three quarters of the way up the roast. Lid on, 3 hours to 3 hours 30 in the oven.
The cue is the same as the slow cooker: it is ready when a fork slides in without any fight and the meat falls apart on its own. If it resists, give it another half hour and stop poking at it.
One thing to watch. The oven evaporates liquid and the slow cooker does not, so check around the halfway mark and top up with stock if the level has dropped too far.
🥩 Chuck roast, and what to look for at the counter
Chuck comes off the shoulder, right above the front leg. It is a muscle that works for the whole life of the animal, which is exactly why it is full of collagen and why it is affordable.
I buy mine boneless, around 1 kg for four people. The first thing I look at is not the price, it is the fat. A chuck roast that looks too lean and too tidy gives you a flat sauce eight hours later.
🍴 Shred it hot, with two forks
Pull the meat out and work on it right away, two forks, one to hold and one to pull. Let it cool and the fibres tighten back up, then you are fighting with it.
As you go, set aside the lumps of fat that never rendered and throw them out. They did not melt in eight hours and they are not going to now. Also, it stays scalding hot much longer than you expect.
❄️ Freeze it in its juices
Never freeze this beef drained. Everything goes into the container together, meat, sauce, cranberries and vegetables. The juices are what keep the meat from going stringy when you reheat it. Three to four days in the fridge, several months in the freezer.
Reheat low and slow in a pot, never at a hard boil.
✅ What to serve with my slow cooker pot roast?
My Boursin garlic and herb mashed potatoes, no contest. The cheese and garlic stand up to the sweetness of the cranberries, and the sauce pools in the mash the way it should. If that feels like a lot of richness on one plate, my white balsamic arugula salad fixes it in two minutes: sharp, peppery, and it cuts straight through the sauce. Plain rice or a vegetable couscous do the job too. And if you still have beef two days later, it lands very well in my shredded beef chili.
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Ingredients
- A small drizzle of olive oil, about 2 tablespoons (30 ml)
- 1 organic boneless beef chuck roast (1 kg/2.2 lb)
- 1 big carrot, peeled, cut in half then sliced
- 1 celery stick, sliced
- 1 Spanish onion, finely chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
- 1 cup (250 ml) red wine
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 pack (113 g) dried cranberries, the least sweetened you can find
- Zest and juice from 1 orange
- 1 tablespoon (15 ml) finely grated fresh ginger
- 1/4 cup (60 ml) soy sauce
- 2 to 3 cups (500 to 750 ml) veal stock, or beef broth, enough to cover the meat
- Salt and ground pepper
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Preparation
- In a big skillet at medium-high heat, add a small drizzle of olive oil and sear the roast on all sides, 12 to 15 minutes total. We want a nice and dark colour to give some taste! Generously season with salt and pepper. Remove from skillet and set aside in a plate.
- Add the carrot, celery, onion and garlic then cook for about 4-5 minutes to caramelize. Season with salt and pepper. Deglaze with the red wine and scrape the bottom and sides to go get all those delicious flavours!
- Pour half of the veggies mix in the slow cooker then add the roast. Add the rest of the veggies mix along with the rest of the ingredients. Pour enough veal stock to cover the roast then stir well.
- Cover and cook for 8 hours at low heat. Stir gently midway! Remove meat from the slow cooker then pull it apart with two forks, being careful not to burn yourself. Discard bits of fat as you go. Serve with mashed potatoes, rice or vegetable couscous!
It is a cut from the shoulder of the cow, sitting just above the front leg. Grocery stores sometimes label it chuck roll, shoulder roast, or simply pot roast, and in French it is called a rôti de palette. That muscle works nonstop. It is loaded with collagen and connective tissue, which is why it stays cheap and why it turns inedible when you cook it fast. Grill a chuck roast like a steak and you get shoe leather. Braise it for hours and it turns into one of the best pieces of beef there is.
Low heat and time. There is no way around it. The collagen that makes chuck tough only starts melting into gelatin somewhere around 160 to 180°F, and it needs hours at that temperature to break down completely. Eight hours on low in a slow cooker does exactly that. A covered Dutch oven at 350°F for three and a half hours gets you to the same place faster. What does not work is high heat in a hurry, in any appliance.
Almost always because it did not cook long enough, which feels backwards but is true. Beef chuck goes through a tough stage in the middle of the braise, right when the muscle fibres have tightened and the collagen has not melted yet. If you check at hour five and the fork will not go in, the answer is more time, not less. The other common cause is the high setting on the slow cooker: it drives the meat through that tough stage too fast and dries it out on the way. Low, eight hours, lid closed.
You can, and the beef holds up beautifully, but taste it first. This sauce is built on orange, cranberry and ginger, so it leans sweet and tangy rather than smoky. In a taco it works better with something sharp next to it, pickled onions or a lime slaw. If tacos are what you are actually after, my Korean beef tacos are built for that from the start, same slow cooker, completely different sauce.
My Boursin garlic and herb mashed potatoes first, because they catch the sauce and the garlic answers the sweetness of the cranberries. My white balsamic arugula salad on the side for bitterness and freshness. Plain rice or vegetable couscous work well too if you want something more neutral. And for leftovers, my shredded beef chili is where the last of it usually ends up at my house.
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