The Best Crock Pot Roast & Vegetables with Homemade Gravy

There are times when using the crock pot (slow cooker) is the best possible way to cook a meal because of simplicity, time and because of the cut of meat, low and slow is the perfect way to break down a traditionally tough but flavorful piece of meat. I am still learning how to cook “American” style and I have found that the crock pot is an excellent way to provide a flavorful meal with minimal effort and removes so much of the stress of preparing dinner.

Crock Pot Chuck Roast & Vegetables

I wanted to cook a slow cooked beef roast, so I went onto the internet and searched a variety of websites to find a selection of different recipes that I could pick and choose a variety of different ingredients in order to make a meal that best met the flavors that I was seeking to achieve. The result is the meal in this post that I made for dinner recently.

Slow Cooked Chuck Roast & Vegetables, Cooked for 8 Hours

Ingredients:

• 2 ½ Pounds of Chuck Roast
• 1 Can of Beef Broth
• 1 Can of Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup
• 1 Packet of Lipton Onion Dip Mix
• 1 Pound Container of Fresh Sliced Mushrooms
• 1 Pound Bag of Prepared Baby Carrots
• 1 ½ Pounds of Pearl Onions (Peeled and left Whole – Secret Ingredient!)
• 1 ½ Pounds of Fingerling Potatoes
• Flour, Salt & Pepper

 Instructions for Preparing the Crock Pot:

1.  Mix the Beef Broth, Condensed Mushroom Soup and Lipton Onion Dip Mix in the crock pot.
2. Sprinkle Flour, Salt and Black Pepper on the Chuck Roast and sear on all sides in a hot skillet.
3. Place the seared Chuck Roast in the crock pot and then spoon the mixture in the crock pot over the Chuck Roast.
4. Add the Baby Carrots, Fingerling Potatoes and peeled Pearl Onions.
5. Slow cook for 8 – 9 hours on Low or 4 – 5 hours on High. Personally, going for low heat for a longer period of time is what is needed to cook the Chuck Roast to perfection.

From all that I have read this is where most recipes stop and say once cooked, removed the meat and vegetables and serve wither by itself, with egg noodles or with steamed rice.

Slow Cooked (8 Hours) Chuck Roast

Once the meat and vegetables had been removed, I was looking at the broth / natural gravy remaining in the crock pot and realized that there was the potential to do more than just pour the broth over the meal. I was going to make a homemade pot roast gravy.

Instructions for Homemade Pot Roast Gravy:

I poured the remaining broth into a large measuring cup and saw that I had about three cups of Pot Roast Broth to make the gravy.

3 Cups of Pot Roast Broth

1. Separate the drippings from the broth and add the drippings to a medium size sauce pan and heat the drippings on High.
2. Add  3 Tablespoons of Flour and mixed the drippings and the flour together to make a roux. Once the roux was smooth I turned down the temperature to Medium.
3.  Slowly add the 3 cups of Pot Roast Broth to the sauce pan, stirring constantly to make the gravy. Once all of the broth had been added, the gravy was seasoned with salt and black pepper to taste.

Homemade Pot Roast Gravy

The gravy that had a phenomenal taste that brought all of the flavors of the Pot Roast together and was perfect in how the gravy coated the meat, vegetables and egg noodles that I cooked for this meal.

Slow Cooked Pot Roast with Vegetables, Egg Noodles and Homemade Gravy

I know that meals prepared in a crock pot can be failures. Many times the dish can be too salty and the ingredients overcooked. This is one recipe where the ability to be successful is great and the addition of the homemade gravy takes this crock pot meal from being ordinary to amazing. In addition to this, because there is so much food made in this recipe, the leftovers the next day are just as good.