Today I’m making a crock pot herb pot roast with potatoes and carrots for our Christmas Eve dinner. The combination of herbal, salty, and sweet seasonings make for a flavorful treat. Pair it with spicy cinnamon apple cider to really warm up your holiday!
I used a rump roast because the meat is known to be slightly more tender than that of a chuck roast, but either one works well with this recipe. Make sure to add the broth gravy at the end to really get all of those wonderful flavors!
Ingredients
- 2.5-5 pound rump roast
- 3 tbsp Canola oil
- Sea Salt to taste
- Coarse ground black pepper to taste
- 1 sprig fresh rosemary or 1 tbsp dried
- 1 sprig fresh thyme or 1 tbsp dried
- 1 tbsp Gourmet Garden Italian herbs paste or 1 tbsp dried Italian herb mix
- 1 pound baby carrots
- 1 pound Baby Dutch Yellow whole potatoes, or 1 pound small potatoes
- 6 cloves minced garlic
- 4 beef bullion cubes
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 1 tbsp olive oil
- 3 cups water
- 3 tbsp corn starch
Steps
Cover the roast with sea salt and coarse ground black pepper; I like to use lots of salt to brine it, which makes it tender. Once it cooks into the whole roast, it doesn’t taste as salty as it sounds. Use 1 tbsp of sea salt if you want to be very conservative with the salt.
Heat the slow cooker to high for browning the meat, or heat a pan to medium high to brown the meat.
Add the Canola oil to the slow cooker or pan for browning.
Once the oil is hot, brown the roast on each side for about four to five minutes.
Remove the roast from the slow cooker, and add water, garlic, bullion, potatoes, and carrots.
Lay the roast over the vegetables.
Spoon the brown sugar all over the roast.
Drizzle the roast with the olive oil.
Drizzle the roast with Worcestershire sauce.
Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours or on high for 5-6 hours. Low and slow usually produces the most tender, flavorful meat.
Cover the roast with the herbs and cook for another 1/2 hour. If you let the herbs cook for too long, they may get bitter, so I add them at the end.
Gravy
Take a ladle and spoon out one cup of broth from the crock pot for the gravy. Pour the broth into a stovetop pan and bring to a boil. Add three tablespoons of corn starch while whisking the gravy. Once it reaches a thick consistency, remove from heat.
Top with gravy and enjoy!
