top of page
Writer's pictureSpirulina Sims

BEST MISSISSIPPI POT ROAST

Updated: Nov 13, 2023




Thank you for your feedback. You asked me for recipes that provide easy-to-prepare, set-it-and-forget-it type of foods. In response, I would like to introduce you to Mississippi Pot Roast.


This dish is made using chuck roast seasoned with ranch seasoning, ground black pepper, and brown gravy mix. Some people prefer au jus seasoning instead of the gravy mix, but my twist is to use Popeyes gravy. The meat is then slow-cooked in a slow cooker for 8 hours, along with some butter, ranch seasoning, and pepperoncini peppers. I served this dish for Thanksgiving, and it was a huge hit with my family. It quickly became a fan favorite, and everyone loved it so much that they had more of it than the turkey that day. In fact, my husband enjoyed it so much that he asked me to make it again a few weeks later.


Mississippi Pot Roast is my go-to meal when I work long hours and don't have the time to prepare a meal from scratch. I used to set it up in the morning before work, and by the time I came home, it was ready to serve. The meat is incredibly tender and soft, cooked to perfection in eight hours. You can serve this pot roast in a variety of ways - over mashed potatoes, rice, mixed vegetables, or any other way you like. It is also keto-friendly, so you can have it with some cauliflower mash or rice for a complete meal. My personal favorite side dish to serve with this Mississippi Pot Roast is mashed potatoes. Before I share the recipe, I would like to share a bit of history behind this dish, as it is a tradition in Mississippi.




“Fifteen or so years ago, by her recollection, a woman named Robin Chapman made a pot roast in her slow cooker. Now known as Mississippi Roast, it would eventually become one of the most popular recipes on the Web, an unlikely star with unlikely ingredients, a favorite of the mom-blog set.


Chapman lives in Ripley, Miss., but she did not call her pot roast Mississippi Roast, not then and not now. She just calls it “roast.” She used beef chuck to make the dish first and put a packet of dry ranch dressing mix on top of the meat, along with a packet of dry “au jus” gravy, a stick of butter, and a few pepperoncini. It was an on-the-spot variation of a recipe she had learned from her aunt, which called for packaged Italian dressing. She said that Chapman wanted something “milder,” so she swapped out the Italian for the ranch. She set the slow cooker to low and walked away. Some hours later, her family divided into their meal with glee. She has made the roast ever since. And largely unnoticed by food writers and scholars, the recipe has slowly taken on a life of its own.”


The story of that twisting road to fame began a few months after the dish’s creation when Chapman prepared the roast for Karen Farese, a friend “since we were diapers,” Chapman said. Farese loved her dinner and eventually contributed a recipe to a cookbook put together by her congregation, the Beech Hill Church of Christ, also in Ripley. Farese did not call the dish Mississippi Roast either. She called it “roast beef.”


One Beech Hill congregant, Judy Ward, started making Farese’s recipe for Sunday lunch at her family’s home near Ripley in Hickory Flat. Laurie Ormon of Bentonville, Ark., is Ward’s niece by marriage, and she told me she ate the dish when she and her husband visited the area in 2010. She wrote about it soon after on her blog, Laurie’s Life.




Ingredients



1 3–4 pounds chuck roast or your favorite type of roast


Lawry's seasoned salt and freshly ground black pepper, garlic powder to taste

packet of au jus gravy mix. ( I like to use the Popeyes gravy. I use half a cup. I find it tastier)

1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter

8 whole pepperoncini

¼–½ cup all-purpose flour, as needed (optional)

3 tablespoons olive oil

3 cup beef broth

2 Yellow onion, medium sized

1 packet (1 ounce) Hidden Valley® Original Ranch® Seasoning


Directions:




STEP 1



Generously season the chuck roast with Kosher salt, Black Pepper, and garlic powder and Onion Powder.


Sprinkle enough flour over the roast to coat the surface evenly.



STEP 2

Heat oil in a large skillet pan over high heat until extremely hot, but not smoking. Sear the roast until it is browned and crusty on all sides, which should take about 10 minutes.



STEP 3

Put the roast in the pot of a slow cooker. Pour beef broth around the roast, sprinkle with seasoning mix, and pour Popeyes gravy on top with butter.




Scatter pepperoncini over and around the roast.




STEP 4


Cover the slow cooker and set it on low heat for 6 to 8 hours. Once ready, shred the meat and mix it with the sauce in the slow cooker. Serve and enjoy your delicious slow-cooked chuck roast!








Comments


6544a1_554ae62b145044b5b5e3c93e9b9db213~mv2.jpg

  STAY IN THE MIX

Join our email list to be first to get updates on new posts.

Thanks for submitting!

bottom of page