Forget The Slow Cooker: There's A Better (And Faster) Way To Make Pot Roast

Slow-cooking a pot roast recipe at the end of your weekend is the hallmark of a lazy Sunday. Simply pop your favorite cut of beef, whether it be a chuck, rump, or round roast, into the slow cooker with some broth and veggies and let it simmer away for hours while you potter around the house in your sweats. However, if you're craving this comforting dish on a chilly evening after a miserable day at work, you need to bypass the slow cooker and grab your Instant Pot to save time and energy while maximizing flavor.

An Instant Pot brisket pot roast can be pressure-cooked in 60-80 minutes, depending on its size, which is far quicker than the 8-10 hours it can take to soften a large cut of beef in a slow cooker. Aside from the time-saving benefits, pressure cooking your pot roast curbs energy usage, too. While slow cookers are designed to use little energy (and can often cost less than running an oven), pressure cookers are also incredible energy-saving appliances because of the clever way they work. The food cooks at a quicker rate because of the high pressure inside the chamber, but interestingly, once you've switched it off — and no energy is being used — the ingredients continue to cook in the residual heat as the steam is slowly released. As an Instant Pot eliminates evaporation, all those scrumptious meaty aromas and seasonings stay put inside the chamber, producing a pot roast that's packed with flavor.

Aside from a slow cook, pressure cook, and keep warm button, Instant Pots have a sauté function. This means you can brown the exterior of your cut of beef first to boost its caramelized flavor before adding your liquid of choice (beef broth, wine, canned soup, or water) and pressure cooking for a little over one hour.

After this point, allow the pressure inside to release naturally. This extra bit of time will ensure that the fatty marbling and connective tissue inside the beef can render down, becoming unctuously tender and soft. If you want to add vegetables like potatoes and carrots to your pot roast, keep them whole rather than chopping them into smaller pieces, as this will ensure that they retain some of their texture.

Another mistake you might be making with your pot roast, particularly when using an Instant Pot, is adding too much liquid to the bottom of the pot. Because Instant Pots have a moisture-locking design, the liquid you put inside won't evaporate or thicken. Rather, it will turn into steam, condense on the lid, and fall back inside the chamber. That said, your potatoes will absorb some of the broth and the meat's umami juices, producing a rich, characterful gravy.