This Spin on Mississippi Pot Roast Is Seriously Delicious—and Doesn't Require a Slow Cooker

Winter can feel dark and dreary, but I have a soft spot for January and February. It’s the only time of year that’s cold enough for me to simmer something on the stove for several hours without turning my home into a sauna. This makes dinner prep much easier: Instead of racing around my kitchen at 6 p.m. trying to get dinner on the table in 30 minutes, I can leisurely start a soup, stew, or braise earlier in the day, then simply let it cook largely unattended. One of the easiest meals to prepare this way is Mississippi pot roast: a tangy, savory chuck roast typically made by slow cooking the meat with a packet of ranch seasoning, au jus gravy mix, a stick of butter, and a handful of jarred pepperoncini. 

The dish reportedly has its roots in Ripley, Mississippi; according to Sam Sifton, the former deputy dining editor of the New York Times, Mississippi roast rose to fame after a woman named Robin Chapman shared her recipe with a friend, Karen Farese, who then contributed it to her church’s community cookbook. “By fits and starts at first, and more recently in droves, people began sharing the image and the recipe on Pinterest and Reddit, on Facebook and Twitter,” Sifton wrote in the New York Times in 2016. According to Google data, searches the term “Mississippi roast” have steadily risen over the past 14 years, with searches peaking in January 2022. 

It’s no surprise that home cooks have taken to the roast: It’s exceedingly simple, and most iterations of the dish call for nothing more than chuck roast, a few shelf-stable packaged ingredients, and a slow cooker. Though store-bought products are handy in a pinch, we were curious to see how much more delicious a from-scratch version cooked on the stovetop could be. With that in mind, our Birmingham, Alabama-based test kitchen colleague Elizabeth Mervosh set out to develop the very best Mississippi pot roast recipe—one that doesn’t require much more effort than the original slow-cooker version, but is just as (if not even more!) flavorful. Here’s how she did it.

Sear Your Beef—but Halve It First

Searing is one of the easiest ways to give meat flavor; the high heat initiates the  Maillard reaction—a series of chemical reactions that occurs when heat transforms proteins and sugars in food, resulting in more complex flavors and aromas. One of the best reasons to cook this dish on the stovetop rather than in a slow cooker is that you can sear it (while some slow cookers have a sear function, not all do—and the sear function doesn't always work great on the ones that have it.) Because browning a three-pound piece of beef can be an unwieldy task, our recipe calls for  cutting the roast into two steaks before searing it. Not only does this make the beef easier to work with, but it also speeds up the cooking time and, more importantly, maximizes the surface area for browning—and therefore flavor development.

Add a Little Gelatin

For a sauce with more body, Mervosh fortifies the broth with gelatin. It’s a trick that former Serious Eats editor Kenji and our current editorial director Daniel use in some recipes, including all-American beef stew and shepherd’s pie, to thicken sauces without drastically changing their flavor. “That’s always been my one hang-up with this dish: The beef is so rich, but the sauce usually has a watery texture,” Mervosh wrote in her testing notes for this recipe. A few teaspoons of powdered gelatin is all it takes to transform a soupy sauce into a velvety one that’s just thick enough to coat a spoon.

Don't Overcook It

Another good reason we choose the stovetop over the slow cooker for this recipe is to mitigate the risk of overcooking the meat and making it tough and dry. A long, slow braise can yield tender meat, but it is possible to overcook your beef. “When stewing meat, you’re playing a racing game between two simultaneous processes," Kenji wrote in his beef stew recipe. "First is the conversion of connective tissues to gelatin. This softens the meat and makes it moister. On the other hand, muscle proteins are constantly contracting and squeezing out internal moisture. This hardens the meat and makes it tougher.” His solution, and Mervosh’s, is to crack the lid during cooking, which keeps the temperature consistent and prevents the stew from getting too hot.

Recreate the Flavors of Ranch With Buttermilk and Fresh Dill

Instead of ready-made ranch seasoning, we incorporate fresh dill and whole buttermilk (essential ingredients in classic ranch dressing) into the pot roast, which gives the dish a herbaceous, tangy flavor. We incorporate the buttermilk at the very end and, to prevent the dairy from curdling, we temper the dairy with some of the hot braising liquid. Curdling can happen when there’s a rapid temperature change, and tempering is a technique that helps minimize that: To temper, you whisk a small amount of hot liquid into cold dairy or eggs, warming them up, before stirring that tempered mixture back into a larger pot of hot liquid. 

Mississippi pot roast is a great winter dish no matter where you live, and with just a few tweaks, this easy meal can be even more delicious.