There is a moment, about three hours in, when the whole house smells like somebody's grandmother has taken over the kitchen. That is this recipe. No packet, no pile of little jars — one chuck roast, one seasoning, and an afternoon of the oven doing the work while you do something else.
Divine Bovine is our organic Montreal-style steak rub, and it is coarse enough to hold up to a long braise. Rubbed on half an hour before the roast hits the pan, it draws a little moisture to the surface, dissolves, and bonds to the crust instead of washing off into the pot.
Everything else is what is coming in from the field right now. Carrots, yellow onions and celery are at their best in the first week of October, and the Carolina sweet potato harvest is on if you want to swap half the potatoes. They go in for the last hour only, so they come out tender rather than dissolved.
Serves six with enough left over for sandwiches, which is the real reason to make a pot roast on a Sunday.
Dutch Oven Pot Roast with Divine Bovine
Fork-tender Dutch oven pot roast with organic Divine Bovine steak rub, carrots and potatoes. One pot, one seasoning, one very happy Sunday dinner.
Ingredients
For the roast
- 1 boneless beef chuck roast, 3½ to 4 lb
- 2 Tbsp Divine Bovine organic Montreal-style steak rub
- 2 Tbsp olive oil
For the pot
- 2 large yellow onions, cut into thick wedges
- 2 stalks celery, cut into 2-inch pieces
- 2 Tbsp tomato paste
- 3 cups low-sodium beef broth
- 1 cup water
- 3 sprigs fresh thyme (optional)
Added in the last hour
- 4 large carrots, peeled and cut into 2-inch chunks
- 1½ lb baby yellow potatoes, halved
For the gravy
- 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour
- Kosher or flaky sea salt, to taste
- Crushed red pepper, to taste (optional)
Instructions
- Pat the chuck roast completely dry with paper towels — a wet roast steams instead of searing. Rub all 2 Tbsp of Divine Bovine over every surface: top, bottom, sides and the awkward end pieces. Leave it on the counter for 30 minutes while the oven heats to 325°F with a rack in the lower third.
- Heat the olive oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high until it shimmers. Lay the roast in and do not touch it for 4 to 5 minutes. Flip, repeat on the second side, then stand it on its edges with tongs to brown those too. You want a genuinely dark crust, not a pale tan one. That crust is most of the finished flavor. Move the roast to a plate.
- Lower the heat to medium. Add the onion wedges and celery to the same pot and cook 5 minutes, stirring and scraping up the browned bits stuck to the bottom. Stir in the tomato paste and cook 1 minute more, until it darkens from red to brick.
- Pour in the beef broth and the water. Scrape the bottom of the pot clean with a wooden spoon until every brown bit lifts, and bring it to a simmer.
- Return the roast and any juices on the plate to the pot, and tuck in the thyme sprigs if you have them. The liquid should come about halfway up the meat; add a splash more water if it does not. Put the lid on, slide it into the oven, and cook 2 hours.
- Pull the pot out, tuck the carrots and potatoes in around the roast, cover, and return it to the oven for 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes — until a fork slides into the beef with no resistance and twists easily. Vegetables added at the start turn to mush by hour three, which is the whole reason they wait.
- Lift the roast and vegetables onto a serving platter and tent with foil. Set the Dutch oven over medium heat on the stovetop and fish out the thyme stems. Whisk the flour into ½ cup of the hot cooking liquid in a small bowl until there are no lumps, then whisk that back into the pot. Simmer 4 to 5 minutes, stirring, until the gravy coats the back of a spoon.
- Taste the gravy and add salt only if it wants it. Pull the roast apart into big chunks with two forks, spoon the gravy over the meat and vegetables, and put the platter in the middle of the table where everyone can reach it.
Season it half an hour before it hits the pan
Thirty minutes on the counter is not idle time. The rub draws a little moisture to the surface, dissolves into it, and bonds to the meat, so the seasoning ends up on the crust instead of in the bottom of the pot. Thirty minutes is also short enough that the roast is not sitting out long; if you want to season it the night before, do it in the fridge, uncovered, and let it come to room temperature while the oven heats.
Chuck roast, and nothing else
Chuck is full of connective tissue, which is exactly why it works here. Below about 200°F internal it is tough; above it, that collagen melts into gelatin and the meat goes silky. Three hours at 325°F gets you there. A lean cut like eye of round will never do this — it has nothing to melt, so it just dries out.
The sear is not optional
If you take one shortcut here, do not let it be this one. A pale roast makes pale gravy. Get the pot properly hot, give each side its full four or five minutes without moving it, and let the crust go dark brown before you flip.
Go easy on the salt
Divine Bovine is our organic Montreal-style steak rub, and the broth brings salt of its own, so taste the gravy before you reach for the salt cellar. A pinch of flaky salt at the table is usually all it wants. A dash of crushed red pepper lets everyone set their own heat.
What is good right now
This is a Carolina pot for the first week of October. Carrots, yellow onions and celery are all coming in, thyme and rosemary are still going in the garden, and the sweet potato harvest is on — swap half the yellow potatoes for sweet potato chunks and add them with the rest in the final hour. Cabbage wedges tucked around the edges in the last 45 minutes are very good too.
Sunday cooking, Monday eating
Pot roast is better on day two, once the gravy has had a night to settle into the meat. Keep the beef in the gravy rather than apart from it, reheat gently in a covered pot at 300°F, and you have a second dinner that cost you nothing. The leftovers also make the best sandwich of the week on a soft roll.
Feeding more than six
A second roast will not fit in one pot and crowding it ruins the sear, so use two Dutch ovens or sear in batches and braise in a large covered roasting pan. Serve it over The OG Mashed Potatoes if you want to stretch it further. For the holidays, the Divine Bovine Christmas Roast uses the same rub on a rib roast.