Archives for March 2018

This sun-dried tomato and olive chuck roast is rich and satisfying without being too heavy. Although it has been very wintery here in SoCal the last few weeks, we still don’t deal with the heavy winter others are faced with in colder parts of the country. This chuck roast is great bridge between those heavy winter meals and the is-it-spring-yet kind of mood.

Growing up in a town that is really cold in the winter and too freaking hot in the summer, the slow cooker was a much beloved appliance in our kitchen. My dad often whipped up simple meals in the slow-cooker using chuck roast. The meat that started out tough like shoe leather became tender bites of meaty magic. Can you tell I have many fond and delicious memories? I definitely get my love for red meat from my father.

Ranking as one of my current favorite meals, it is one of those dishes that tastes like you used a laundry list of ingredients when you really didn’t. Now, I didn’t say it is called sun-dried tomato and olive chuck roast with only five ingredients, but the list really is quite short given its flavor. The meat, sun-dried tomatoes, and olives are the stars of this dish. I even added in some additional brine from the olive jar to amp up the flavor. The briney (yes, I know that’s probably not a word) nature of the olives helps cut the richness of the fat. Fat is good, but too much can make a dish too one-sided.

Choose your own cooking adventure.

Did you ever read those books? Choose Your Own Adventures were some of my favorite books as a child. I haven’t thought about them in ages until I accidentally typed that above and decided I should leave it. Cooking adventure sounds more fun than cooking method, doesn’t it?

Do you want to know another reason why you should add these ingredients to your shopping list and make this recipe? You get to choose how you cook it. That’s right. You are in control. You can make the sun-dried tomato and olive chuck roast in your slow cooker, Instant Pot (pressure cooker), or go totally old school and make it on the stovetop/oven in a Dutch oven.

Whenever possible, I prefer making things slowly. Start the meal on the stove and then let it finish in the oven at low temperature for hours. I really appreciate my Dutch oven and the magic of low and slow cooking. It simply is magical. Let’s get real, though. I am a mom of two energizer bunnies that make me grateful for slow-cookers and pressure cookers.

Choose your own characters.

Come on, I had to stick with the theme.

When you gather your ingredients you will find some variety in the cuts of meat depending on where you get your meat as well as if it is grass-fed or grain-fed. Once you start discovering the differences in the meats you source, you have a bit more control over the finished meal. Or at least have a better idea what to expect from your ingredients.

The first time I made this dish I used 100% grass-fed from our localish meat guy. It was a solid chunk of beautiful chuck roast. It had some fat marbled through it, but not too much. On another go around with the recipe, I made it using grass-fed grain-finished beef chuck roast. There was much more fat throughout the meat which added to the richness of the meal. I am not calling this a good or bad thing. It is what it is.

If you do opt for a fattier cut of meat and you find the sauce too rich, you can skim the fat off or even try straining it through a strainer or cheesecloth. There is so much flavor in the sauce after the meat has spent hours in the slow cooker or minutes in the pressure cooker, but you don’t have to keep it all. Use what suits you and your family.

You can also use whatever red wine you have in your house for this recipe. You do have wine in your house, right? I am not afraid to admit that I have a slight obsession with wine. Maybe its because I am a mom with two little rascals or maybe its just because…whatever it is, I love it and I also love cooking with wine. My love for wine has left me with a HUGE supply of wine corks that I can’t seem to part with. I am not a craft person. I am not a search-Pinterest-and-find-the-cutest-craft person either. BUT I may have to become one because I just know there is something to be made of all these corks. I decided I would write the dates and importance on the corks. Cheesy? Maybe. We will see where it goes.

Choose your own ending.

Find your ingredients. Open your bottle of wine. Choose slow cooker, pressure cooker, or stove-top/oven. Pour glass of wine. Serve dinner. Enjoy your family, friends, and conversations while the sun-dried tomato and olive chuck roast fills your belly.

Please let me know if you make this recipe by leaving a comment below.

Print Recipe

Sun-dried tomato and olive chuck Roast in slow cooker

This Sun-dried tomato and olive chuck roast is perfect for those evenings when you want a hearty and rich meal that doesn't require a lot of work. For added ease, you can let your slow cooker or pressure cooker do the work. 

Prep Time15 mins

Cook Time8 hrs

Simmer10 mins

Total Time8 hrs 15 mins

Course: Main Course

Cuisine: American

Servings: 8 people

Calories: 302kcal

Author: Ashley

Ingredients

• 2-3 pounds beef chuck roast
• 1 large yellow onion sliced into half circles
• 3 garlic cloves smashed with peel removed
• 2 tbsp coconut oil
• 3 sprigs thyme
• 1 sprig rosemary
• 1 tbsp fennel seeds
• 1 bay leaf
• 3 tbsp sun-dried tomatoes
• 12 olives
• 3 tbsp olive brine
• 1 cup red wine
• ½ cup broth
• salt and pepper meat

Instructions

• Season meat with salt and pepper
• Heat pot and sear all sides of meat until brown and toasty.
• Remove meat from pan and set aside.
• Add in sliced onions to pot adding in extra oil if too dry. Season with salt. After onions start to get tender (about 3 minutes), stir in garlic, thyme sprig, rosemary sprig, fennel seeds, and bay leaf. Let cook until fragrant for about 1 minute.
• Pour in wine to deglaze the pan. Use wooden spoon to stir and scrape off any brown bits (flavor central) from bottom of pot.
• Add in olives, olive brine, sun-dried tomatoes, and broth. Stir together. Return meat to pot setting in center of other ingredients. Liquid should come up about half way or more towards top of meat.
• Slow Cooker: Cook on low for 8 hours in slow cooker.
• Pressure Cooker: Cook under high pressure for 55 minutes. Let pressure release naturally for 15 minutes. Ensure pressure is fully released before opening lid. 
• Remove meat and set on plate or serving bowl. Use Saute function of pressure cooker and let sauce simmer to reduce. Alternatively, you can pour sauce into small saute pan or pot and let simmer to reduce. 
• Place meat and the other veg from sauce (tomatoes, olives, onions) on serving bowl. Gently pull apart meat into smaller pieces to make serving easier. Pour reduced sauce over meat and sprinkle with fresh parsley. Enjoy!

Notes

Note: If your cut of meat has more fat on it, your sauce may end up a little too rich. You have a few options here. 1) If you can see a deep layer of fat on surface of sauce, you can skim it off and discard. 2)You can pour sauce through fine mesh strainer or cheesecloth and then skim off the unnecessary fat. 3) You can eat it and enjoy the richness. 🙂 

Note 2: I used an Instant Pot to prepare this recipe both using slow cooker approach and pressure cooker which enabled me to sear the meat/veg in the pot. If you are using a standard slow cooker, you most likely will not have this option. Use a dutch oven or large frying pan to sear meat and then cook the onions. Once you get to step 5 and complete the deglazing of pan, pour the onions and sauce and all the yummy bits into pot of slow cooker and continue with steps. 

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