Slow cooker Italian pot roast with sun-dried tomatoes and olives
It's school vacation week, and you've got your hands full. Why not toss a few ingredients into the slow cooker, and let dinner cook all day while you're making snow angels or going to see The Hobbit with the kids? This Italian pot roast tastes great on the day you make it, served with boiled potatoes or egg noodles, and even better the next day. The balsamic vinegar and olives lend their perky tang, and sun-dried tomatoes deepen the sauce, turning a humble chuck roast into a divine stew. Dinner doesn't get much easier, or more comforting, than this.
Slow cooker Italian pot roast with sun-dried tomatoes and olives
From the pantry, you'll need: balsamic vinegar, red wine, roasted garlic paste or sliced garlic, arrowroot, olives.
Serves 6.
Ingredients
3 lbs beef chuck roast
1/4 cup roasted garlic paste, or 20 garlic cloves, peeled and sliced
1/4 cup roughly chopped sun-dried tomatoes (not oil-packed)
1/2 cup dry red wine
2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tsp dried Italian seasoning (or dried thyme)
1/4 tsp fresh black pepper
1 tsp arrowroot
8-10 large green olives stuffed with pimiento, sliced crosswise into thick slices
Directions
Trim the beef to remove all visible fat. Follow the natural separations in the meat, and you will end up with several pieces totalling approximately 2 pounds. Set aside.
Into a 4-quart slow cooker, place the garlic paste (or sliced garlic) and sun-dried tomatoes. Set the beef on top. Pour the wine over the meat, and sprinkle with the vinegar, Italian seasoning and black pepper.
Cook on LOW for 7 hours, or until the meat is falling-apart tender. With a slotted spoon, remove the meat to a platter, and turn the cooker to HIGH.
In a small bowl, mix the arrowroot with 2 teaspoons of water to form a smooth paste. Add this to the liquid in the slow cooker, and stir to combine. Cover, and cook for 10 minutes or until the sauce has thickened.
Pour the sauce over the meat, and stir in the sliced olives.
Sliced the meat or separate into chunks, and serve over rice or noodles, or let the meat cool and refrigerate overnight. Like all stews, this tastes better on the second day.
More recipes in The Perfect Pantry:
Slow cooker Tex-Mex pot roast
Slow cooker espresso rubbed pot roast
Slow cooker sweet and smoky beef
Beef, ale and onion stew
Slow cooker beef stew with potatoes, parsnips and rutabaga
Other recipes that use these pantry ingredients:
Picadillo Cubano, from My Colombian Recipes
Crockpot beef stew with olives, garlic, capers and tomatoes, from Kalyn's Kitchen
Olives stuffed with ground beef in piquant tomato ragout, from Leite's Culinaria
Beef with olives and tomatoes, from Laws of the Kitchen
Ropa vieja with olives and capers, from Healthy. Delicious.
Need more creative ideas for using tomatoes all year round? Get 25 Tomatoes, my e-book packed with fantastic recipes, full-color photos and a fun video tutorial. With the FREE Kindle Reading app, delicious tomato recipes will always be just one click away on any computer, tablet or smart phone. Click here to learn more.
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ohhhh yum. beef,tomatoes, olives....this could be my "last supper" it has all my favorites!
Carol, it's a kind of meat-and-potatoes day here in New England, isn't it? Enjoy this one.
I love roasts Lydia. So comforting year round but especially on dreary weather days like today. I never cooked chuck with balsamic and arrow root and now, must! :)
Oh, Lydia--I love this and I haven't even cooked it yet. But I will. Happy New Year and thanks for all the inspiration!
This sounds so delicious! Bookmarked.
Foodwanderings, I loved the rich flavors of this pot roast, and like all stews, it was even better on the second day. I hope you like it.
Donna, many thanks for your kind words. I thank you, and all of my readers, for inspiring me. Happy New Year!
Kalyn, so, so good. Then again, I am a pot roast lover at heart!
You do amazing things with your crockpot, Lydia! I have yet to cook a pot roast in my crockpot, but this looks simply divine and is making me re-think that.
Beautiful dish and full of flavor!Thanks for the link,Lydia! Happy New Year!
This is truly lovely! It's going in my crockpot tomorrow.
Cookin Canuck, thank you so much. I'm fairly new to slow cooker cooking, and I'm having so much fun experimenting. I've had great luck with pot roasts.
Erica, Beverly: Enjoy!
I made this a couple of nights ago and it was a big hit. I used a beef pot roast rather than several pieces of meat, and even though it was falling apart tender I was able to slice it like a roast. I laid the beef on a bed of thickly sliced onions, which were also delicious.I cooked it on High 8 hrs. We had the leftovers the following night and it reheated beautifully. I loved the sundried tomatoes in it.
Lynne, thanks so much for taking the time to come back and let us know how much you liked the recipe. After 8 hours on high, that meat must have been so tender! The thought of those leftovers has me salivating.
Love this one! I dried tons of my garden tomatoes in the dehydrator this summer, so now am on the lookout for yummy things to do with them. This potroast is amazing. I increased the wine to a cup, increased the dried tomatoes to 1/3 cup, and added a sliced onion, a chopped sweet pepper, and 2 minced hot peppers (also from my garden) to the layer of dried tomatoes. Sliced mushrooms are a good addition too. I don't often have green olives on hand so used black olives instead, which work just fine. The sauce is deliciously tangy and the meat is tender and yummy. I have this recipe in the crockpot right now (my second time making it) and this time I seared the meat in a frying pan before adding it to the crockpot. The house smells amazing! I can hardly wait til dinnertime.