For Pot Roast With Tangy, Savory Flavor, Add Half A Cup Of This Classic Steak Sauce From Your Fridge

The best-sourced cuts of meat for pot roast can be richly beefy, but additional tasting notes require more shopping, chopping, or even just shaking out whatever's already in your spice cabinet. To be fair, those herbs, spices, and seasonings can take a pot roast from bland to wham, but planning and preparing them also requires a little more effort than you might want for what's otherwise a pretty low-lift dinner. The extra work makes for a particularly delicious dish, but tasty shortcuts are also great for when you're on the move.

Some of the A.1. sauce you're more likely to associate with steaks tipped right into your slow cooker pot roast braise puts it on the fast track to flavor with minimal additional ingredients. A.1. contains tomato puree, expected sauce components, such as dried garlic and onion, and elements of orange and raisin that you might not know are there until you know they're there. The result is quite tangy, a little sweet, and totally congruous with pot roast once you put two and two together. A ½ cup or so of A.1. whisked with an equal part of water to thin it out enough to bathe the big protein goes a long way, and with little more than the turn of a cap and the flip of your slow cooker's switch.

Kraft, the company that makes A.1., advises also tossing a pack of onion-mushroom soup mix into the braising liquid, but that's plenty adaptable by skipping the 'shrooms and using plain onion soup mix, or going even tangier with a ranch packet. Regardless, you need only to stir the ingredients vigorously to combine, and pour it into the slow cooker with the roast and veggies, such as onions, carrots, and potatoes. You can also swap or pop in celery, or use this as an opportunity to finish any leftover garlic cloves. The dried mushrooms among your must-have pantry staples are also great since their natural umami quality mingles effectively with the savory A.1. sauce.

That A.1. is anecdotally more associated with affordable steaks than the fancy ones you leave less adorned also makes sense for pot roast, which transforms yet another relatively cheap beef selection into a pretty iconic home-cooked entree. Getting it all situated only takes a few minutes, then, before you know it — or after about eight hours in the small appliance — the pot roast is tender, comforting, and way more crowd-pleasing than its scant few ingredients might suggest.