The Ultimate Comfort Food - Slow Cooker Roast Beef!

The Fall is the perfect time to break out your slow cooker and make some of your favorite fall comfort foods! I haven't used my slow cooker since last winter. I feel like spring is for making lighter dishes like sautes with fresh peas and summer is for grilling lean meats along with summer vegetables and fresh tomato salads. When fall comes around, pumpkins and squashes such as acorn and butternut are plentiful and we start seeing more root vegetables such as carrots, parsnips and turnips. 

The weather is getting cooler here and beef roasts were on sale at my local market, so I decided to make a healthy slow cooker roast. I found large loose carrots and parsnips - perfect for our fall slow cooker roast! 

I am always looking for slow cooker recipes that are simple and don't use too many processed ingredients such as soup mixes or high sodium broths. They are so hard to find! So, I decided to try an experiment and make my regular, delicious oven roast beef recipe in the slow cooker. 

Since I didn't use a flavor enhancer, the flavor is all in the searing of the meat and veggies. If you don't sear your meat, this dish will be bland! Don't blame me! Just use one of the recipes that adds a broth or soup mix.

I just had the leftovers for lunch and they were perfect for this chilly New York Day!

What's your favorite fall slow cooker recipe? 

Niki's Slow Cooker Roast Beef

by The Cooking Accountant 

Ingredients

• 2 Tbsps olive oil 
• 2-3 lbs beef eye round roast, trimmed of fat
• 2-3 carrots, roughly chopped
• 2-3 parsnips, roughly chopped
• 2-3 stalks celery, roughly chopped
• 1 medium sweet onion, large slices
• 2 to 2-1/2 cups water
• salt and pepper, to taste

Instructions

Prepare everything first: chop your veggies, dry and salt and pepper your meat well. I'm Greek, so I use olive oil for everything, but you can use vegetable oil to sear the meat.

Sear the beef in oil in a heavy pan (like a cast iron dutch oven or stainless steel pot) over medium-high heat until nice and browned on all sides. It should take about 10-15 minutes for the meat to sear. I like to add the vegetables to the pan with the meat once it's almost done to allow them to caramelize. They release water and naturally deglaze the pan. This is where all the flavor will come from.

When done, add all the veggies first to the slow cooker. Then, place the beef on top of the veggies. Add the water and salt and pepper.

Set the slow cooker to HIGH and 5-6 hours depending on the size of the meat.

I like to turn the meat over at the 3 hour mark so that the top is now submerged.

The roast beef should be done in 5-6 hours. Check it with a fork around 5 hours; the beef should feel tender. The longer you leave it, the more softer and shreddable it becomes. If you shred the meat, you can have a nice stew with your veggies; just add some steamed potatoes. Yum!

Prep time: about 30 mins Cook time: 5-6 hours Yield: 4-6 servings