Slow Cooker Mississippi Pot Roast

March is around the corner and I can feel it the way you feel a season change before it arrives: in the light, which is lasting longer, and in the air, which has an edge of warmth hidden inside the cold, and in the birds, which are starting to come back, tentatively, as if they too have been burned by Nebraska before and do not fully trust the thaw. I do not fully trust the thaw either. Nebraska has given me blizzards in March. But the light is longer and I will take what I can get.

I have been on the road more this month, picking up extra runs because February is expensive. The heating bill was ugly. The truck needed new tires. Tyler needs braces, which the dentist delivered like a ransom demand: three thousand dollars, not covered by insurance, payable in installments that feel like a second mortgage. I said okay because what else do you say. You say okay and you drive more miles and you eat lunch from your slow cooker instead of the truck stop diner and you save the three dollars per meal until it adds up to something that can go toward straightening your son teeth.

The slow cooker this week had my Mississippi pot roast, which is not from Mississippi and is not really a pot roast, but the name stuck and I am not fighting it. Take a chuck roast, put it in the slow cooker with a packet of ranch seasoning, a packet of au jus mix, a stick of butter, and a handful of pepperoncini peppers. That is it. That is the whole recipe. Eight hours on low and you have the most tender, flavorful meat you have ever tasted, and the pepperoncini juice makes a gravy that you will want to drink, and I am not saying I have drunk it, but I am not saying I have not.

I shredded the roast in the truck cab, ate it on bread with the pepperoncinis on the side, and saved the rest for sandwiches the next day. At home I made a pot of vegetable beef soup to use up what was in the fridge: carrots, potatoes, celery, onion, canned tomatoes, leftover beef from Sunday dinner, and beef broth. Waste-nothing soup, I call it. Everything goes in the pot and the pot makes sense of it. That is what soup does. That is what mothers do. We take what we have and we make it make sense.

That feeling of making something out of whatever you have—taking the odds and ends and turning them into something that feeds people and wastes nothing—is exactly what drew me to Mississippi Pot Roast in the first place. It’s a five-ingredient recipe that practically makes itself, which is the only kind of recipe I have patience for when life is moving fast and the slow cooker is doing the heavy lifting. Here’s how I make it.

Prep Time: 5 minutes | Cook Time: 8 hours | Total Time: 8 hours 5 minutes | Servings: 6

Ingredients

3 to 4 lb chuck roast
1 packet (1 oz) ranch seasoning mix
1 packet (1 oz) au jus gravy mix
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
8 to 10 pepperoncini peppers (plus a splash of the jar liquid, optional)

Instructions

Place the roast. Set the chuck roast in the bottom of a 6-quart slow cooker. No searing required—this is a no-fuss recipe by design.
Add the seasonings. Sprinkle the ranch seasoning packet evenly over the top of the roast, then sprinkle the au jus mix directly on top of that.
Add butter and peppers. Lay the stick of butter across the top of the roast. Scatter the pepperoncini peppers around and on top of the meat. If you like a little extra tang in the gravy, add a tablespoon or two of the pepper brine.
Cook low and slow. Cover and cook on LOW for 8 hours. Do not lift the lid during cooking. The roast is done when it shreds easily with two forks.
Shred and serve. Use two forks to pull the roast apart directly in the slow cooker, tossing the shredded meat in the pan juices. Serve on crusty bread, over mashed potatoes, or on sandwich rolls with the pepperoncinis on the side.

Nutrition (per serving)

Slow Cooker Mississippi Pot Roast — The Recipe That Pays the Bills