Ina Garten-Inspired Pot Roast
Everything you know about not overcooking beef is wrong here, and it is worth understanding why.
A pot roast is not tender until its internal temperature passes about 90°C. The cut is full of collagen, and collagen only melts into gelatin above roughly 70°C — slowly at first, then properly over a couple of hours in the 85–95°C range. A pot roast pulled at 70°C, which would ruin a steak, is tough. Pulled at 93°C after three hours it falls apart, because the connective tissue that made it chewy has dissolved into the sauce.
So the test is not a thermometer reading you stop at. It is a fork that twists with no resistance.
Jump to the recipe ↓Ina Garten-Inspired Pot Roast
Serves 8 · Main
- Prep
- 25 min
- Cook
- 3 hr 30 min
- Total
- 4 hr
Involved9 steps, 12 ingredients, a technique that commonly fails, over two hours
Ingredients
- 2 kg beef chuck, in one piece
- 2 tbsp kosher salt, black pepper
- 3 tbsp olive oil
- 3 onions, thickly sliced
- 4 carrots, chunked
- 3 celery sticks, chunked
- 6 garlic cloves
- 3 tbsp tomato purée
- 300 ml red wine
- 500 ml beef stock
- 3 sprigs thyme, 2 bay leaves
- 600 g small potatoes
Method
- Salt the beef and leave it uncovered in the fridge overnight if you can.
- Heat the oven to 150°C (130°C fan).
- Sear the joint hard on every side in total. Set aside.10 minutes
- Soften the onions, carrots and celery . Add garlic and tomato purée and cook 2 minutes.10 minutes
- Add the wine and reduce by half, scraping the base.
- Return the beef, add stock and herbs so the liquid comes halfway up.
- Cover and cook 30 min. Add the potatoes and cook 1 hour more.2 hr
- Done when a fork twists in the meat with no resistance — around 93°C inside.
- Rest, then pull into large pieces rather than carving.20 minutes
The cut has to be a working muscle
Chuck, brisket or shin. These are the cuts full of the collagen the method depends on. A lean joint like topside has almost none, so there is nothing to convert — three hours of braising just dries it out, and it comes out stringy no matter what you do. This is the single most common pot roast mistake.
Liquid to halfway, not to cover
Submerged, the whole joint boils. Halfway up, the lower half braises and the exposed top continues to brown in the steam, which is where the roasted flavour in a pot roast comes from.
Pull it apart, do not slice it
At this point the muscle fibres are held together by almost nothing. A knife drags them into shreds; two forks separate them into large, intact pieces along their natural seams. Slicing a pot roast is what makes it look like it fell apart badly rather than deliberately.
Storing
Four days in its liquid, three months frozen. Always store it submerged — meat this well done dries out within hours if it is left exposed.
Questions people ask
What internal temperature for pot roast?
Around 90–95°C, which would be well past ruined for a steak. Judge it by the fork rather than the number.
Why is my pot roast tough after three hours?
Either it needs longer, or it was a lean cut with no collagen to convert. Use chuck, brisket or shin.
Can I use a slow cooker?
Yes — sear and deglaze in a pan first, then 8 hours on low. Skipping the sear costs you most of the flavour.
Should the meat be covered by liquid?
No. Halfway up, so the top browns while the bottom braises.
More like this
Ina Garten-Inspired Beef Bourguignon: Garnish ApartThe onions and mushrooms are cooked separately and added at the end. Simmered in from the start they are what turns it into ordinary stew.
Ina Garten-Inspired Beef Stroganoff: Not Stewing SteakStroganoff is a fast dish and stewing beef needs hours. Use fillet or sirloin, seared in seconds, or it turns grey and tough.
Ina Garten-Inspired Beef Tenderloin: Tuck the TailA whole tenderloin tapers from thick to thin. Fold the narrow end under and tie it, or that end is well done before the middle is warm.