Dutch Oven Pot Roast with Carrots and Potatoes

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Dutch Oven Pot Roast with Carrots and Potatoes

Making pot roast in a Dutch oven is easy, and when you add carrots and onions to the pot it's a one pot meal! You'll love the easy, fast prep for this special hearty meal, perfect for letting cook low and slow on a weekend or work from home day.

Prep Time20

Cook Time4

Total Time4 20

Course: Dinner

Cuisine: American

Servings: servings

Calories: 356kcal

Author: Elizabeth Lindemann

Equipment

Dutch Oven around 5.5 qts, or other oven-safe pot with a lid

Ingredients

3 - 3½ lbs. bottom round / rump beef roast see notes for other cuts
1 tablespoon kosher salt plus more if needed
½ teaspoon black pepper plus more if needed
2 tablespoons olive oil or preferred oil of choice
2 large onions halved and thickly sliced
2 tablespoons tomato paste
3 cups beef broth preferably low sodium
2-3 sprigs fresh thyme
2-3 sprigs fresh rosemary
1 - 1½ lbs. carrots peeled and cut into pieces about 1 - inch wide by 2-3 inches long. Or baby carrots!
1 - 1½ lbs. small gold potatoes halved or quartered depending on size, you want them to be about 1-2 inch pieces

Instructions

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees F. Season the 3 - 3½ lbs. bottom round / rump beef roast on all sides with 1 tablespoon kosher salt and ½ teaspoon black pepper. Heat the 2 tablespoons olive oil over medium high heat in your Dutch oven. Sear the beef until nice and brown (this will take about 5 minutes for each side).
Remove the seared beef to a plate. Add the sliced 2 large onions to the pot, scraping up the browned bits with a wooden spoon as the liquid from the onions is released (it's OK if you don't get it all!). Cook until onions are softened and starting to brown, about 5 minutes.
Add the 2 tablespoons tomato paste and stir to coat, cooking for another minute or so. Pour in the 3 cups beef broth, pouring just a little bit at first to deglaze the pot, scraping up as much of the browned bits as you can from the bottom of the pot (this will add flavor AND make it easier to clean later!).
Place the beef back in the pot, along with the 2-3 sprigs fresh thyme and 2-3 sprigs fresh rosemary. Put the lid on the Dutch oven and place in the preheated oven. Cook at 300 degrees for 2 hours.
Remove the pot and add the cut 1 - 1½ lbs. carrots and cut 1 - 1½ lbs. small gold potatoes. Lift up the beef with tongs so the vegetables submerge into the liquid, placing the beef back on top of them.
Place the lid back on the Dutch oven and cook for another 2 hours at 300 degrees. At this point, check the internal temperature of the beef at the center of the thickest part. You're aiming for 200 - 205 degrees F for that fall-apart tender, shreddable texture. Cook for more time if needed.
Place the beef on a plate or cutting board and use two forks to shred it into chunks (don't shred into tiny pieces like you would pulled pork! Just kind of pull it apart a bit). Place the beef back into the pot, coating with the juices. Taste and adjust seasoning if needed.
Serve, spooning a little bit of liquid from the pot over each plate of beef and vegetables.

Notes

Other cuts of beef: I like using a bottom round / rump roast because it's relatively inexpensive, and incredibly lean. This means it won't make the juices in the pot greasy, and you won't need to skim any fat off, and it's great for anyone watching their saturated fat intake. It also doesn't shrink very much so you get more meat! That said, there are other cuts of beef that can be used for pot roast, like chuck roast, which will add more fat and be quite tender, and brisket. If you use these cuts, use your judgement about whether you want to skim some of the fat off the liquid in the pot before serving.
Salt! Salt is important for flavoring beef - it demands quite a bit. A good rule is 1 teaspoon kosher salt per pound of beef. But you also may find you don't need that much if your beef broth is very high in sodium, or for personal preference. Feel free to err on the side of less salt - I'd half the amount - and add more salt and pepper after cooking if you aren't sure.
Leftovers: Leftovers will keep for a few days in the fridge. I'm very laissez-faire about freezing foods and, while the potatoes will change texture a bit after freezing, I still froze a good portion of this since we had so much leftover. If you aren't picky about post-freezing textures, feel free to freeze these pot roast leftovers! Another idea for leftovers is cutting up the carrots and potatoes into smaller bits and adding more beef broth for a quick beef stew - this will freeze a bit better, too.
If you don't have a Dutch oven, and you don't have a pot that can go from stovetop to oven, you can sear the beef in a skillet, as well as sauté the onions, add tomato paste, and deglaze. Then, add the beef and all those liquids to a casserole dish with a lid and proceed as you would with a Dutch oven. If you don't have a lid, just use a deep oven safe pot/casserole and cover tightly with foil.
You can omit the tomato paste if you don't have any.
For a richer flavor in the liquid, substitute 1 cup of red wine for 1 cup of the beef broth. Pour it in after the tomato paste to deglaze the pot, then proceed with the 2 cups of broth.

Nutrition