This Common Pot Roast Mistake Leaves You With Bland Meat And Raw Veggies

Pot roast is an easy, affordable meal that's big on flavor. But as simple as the dish seems (you only need three ingredients for an easy slow cooker pot roast), it's still possible to mess it up. Christine Pittman, founder and CEO at COOKtheStory, shared exclusive insight on how one common mistake can leave a pot roast overwhelmingly underwhelming, with bland meat and undercooked vegetables, and it has to do with managing your ingredients.  

It can be tempting to place all your ingredients in the pot, cover them with liquid, and just let them cook, but if you go this route, you're doing your pot roast a serious disservice. "When making a pot roast, you want the liquid to come up at most one half up the roast," Pittman says. "I think one third is better, especially if you're going to be adding vegetables partway." Those veggies are going to add even more volume, which could overcrowd the pot. If the veggies don't have enough space to bob around in the liquid, they can't cook evenly, which means you're likely to end up with undercooked (or worse — raw!) vegetables that can lead to a disappointing finished result. 

As for the meat, Pittman explains that when making a tender pot roast, you want to braise it, not boil it, which involves both dry and moist heat. The dry heat cooking occurs when you first brown the meat with the Maillard reaction by searing it. The moist heat cooking happens both under the liquid line and in the rest of the pot itself, which becomes a hot, steamy environment when covered. Adding too much liquid will hinder the caramelization and flavor development that continues occurring on the top of the meat exposed to the hot, moist air.

You've got a lot to get right to create a beautiful pot roast. There's choosing the best cut of meat (bottom round, per Julia Child), preparing and cooking the ingredients to perfection, and, of course, making sure the sauce is nice and flavorful. In fact, that sauce is something that Christine Pittman also cites as another reason you don't want to overload the pot with too much stock or water. As the meat breaks down during cooking, it imparts a deep flavor into the liquid, but unfortunately, the flavor will be diluted if you've added too much. "You really want that liquid to reduce down as things are cooking and have that flavor get concentrated," says Pittman. 

If you do wind up with too much liquid, Pittman has some great advice for fixing it. Simply remove it if you're just getting started. If it's already been cooking awhile, then it's already got flavor built up, which you don't want to lose. In that case, she suggests scooping out some of the liquid and reducing it in a pot on the stove. Once it's thickened and packed with powerful, concentrated flavor, return it back to the dish. 

And if you're concerned about overcrowding the pot when making pot roast, Pittman has a sneaky way to avoid the whole issue. "If the pot is too crowded with your veggies and your meat, the solution is to use a bigger pot," she says. After all, you want plenty of room in the vessel you're working with so you have room to work with when, partway through the cooking process, you add your veggies or give the food a quick stir.