Food

How to Make the Best Pot Roast You’ve Ever Tasted

It’s so easy that you’ll kick yourself for not knowing the secret sooner

Photo by Edgar Castrejon on Unsplash

I discovered pot roast relatively late in life. My mother never cooked a beef roast that wasn’t medium rare, at least not on purpose. It wasn’t until I met my husband in college that I discovered the perfection that was his mother Helen’s pot roast. She was gracious enough to share her secret with me, and now I’m sharing it with you. You’ll thank me later.

For years I kept Helen’s pot roast instructions, scribbled on a page of pocket notebook paper dotted with water stains, in my recipe box. I say instructions because, besides the meat, there are only three other ingredients: salt, pepper, and garlic powder. (The garlic powder is my innovation, she didn’t use it.)

That recipe box is somewhere in my basement where it’s been since I moved into my new house over three years ago. (I’m not very enthusiastic about unpacking.) Fortunately, this recipe is so simple, I know it by heart.

Here are the key elements of Helen’s process:

• The pot — I use a 2.25 quart (2 liter) Le Creuset enameled dutch oven. (Le Creuset prefers to call it a french oven, naturellement.) Helen used a plain old cast iron one. Either one is fine. The size you use should be big enough to fit…