Dinner cooked itself while you were at work

There's a particular kind of good mood that comes from walking in the door at six and smelling a pot roast that's been looking after itself since breakfast. This is the lowest-effort way to cook the 1.4kg roast in your share — no browning, no basting, no checking. The veg goes in the bottom, the beef sits on top, the stock goes around it, and the slow cooker does what eight hours of gentle heat always does to a grass-fed roast: turns it into fork-tender beef with its own gravy waiting underneath.

8 hrs 25 mins 6 servings Prep 15 minsCook 8 hrs 10 minsMain CourseAustralian

Ingredients

  • 1.4kg Your Farmer grass-fed beef roast
  • Salt and pepper to season
  • 1 large brown onion, cut into thick wedges
  • 3 carrots, cut into chunky lengths
  • 600g potatoes, halved (chat potatoes are ideal)
  • 3 cloves garlic, peeled and left whole
  • 500ml beef stock
  • 2 tbsp tomato paste
  • 1 tsp dried thyme
  • 2 tbsp cornflour mixed with 2 tbsp cold water

Instructions

Put the onion, carrots, potatoes and garlic in the base of the slow cooker in an even layer.

1 onion3 carrots600g potatoes3 cloves garlic

Season the roast generously all over with salt and pepper and sit it on top of the vegetables.

1.4kg beef roast

Whisk the stock, tomato paste and thyme together and pour it around the beef, not over it — you want the top to stay out of the liquid.

500ml beef stock2 tbsp tomato paste1 tsp dried thyme

Lid on and cook on LOW for 8 hours, until the beef gives way easily to a fork. Don't lift the lid along the way — every peek lets the heat out.

Lift the beef onto a board and cover it loosely with foil. Stir the cornflour mixture into the juices, switch the cooker to HIGH and let it thicken into gravy for about 10 minutes.

2 tbsp cornflour

Slice the beef thickly against the grain — or pull it into big chunks — and serve it over the vegetables with the gravy ladled generously over everything.

Appears in

Your Farmer CSA grass-fed beef share — vacuum-sealed steaks, roasts, mince and sausages, paddock-to-plate NSW & ACT delivery
CSA Grass Fed Beef Share
From $176.67

Why the Slow Cooker Suits This Roast

The roast in your Your Farmer® share is a lean, whole-muscle cut of around 1.4kg — proper grass-fed beef with real flavour and not much fat to hide behind. Lean cuts like this give you two good roads: a careful oven roast served pink, or long, moist heat that takes the muscle past tough and out the other side into tender. The slow cooker is the second road with the difficulty turned down to zero. Eight hours on LOW keeps the liquid at a bare murmur, the connective tissue melts into the gravy, and there is genuinely nothing to get wrong. The vegetable layer is doing two jobs, by the way — it's the side dish, and it's the trivet that holds the beef up out of the liquid, so the top half steams gently while the bottom braises. Both ends of the pot arrive at six o'clock in exactly the state you'd want them. If your Sundays are for the oven, keep this one for a Tuesday.

Swaps and Variations

Swap half the stock for red wine and it drifts pleasantly toward a French braise. Swede, parsnip or celery sticks are all happy in the vegetable layer through winter. A tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce in the stock deepens the gravy. And the method transfers straight across species — a pastured lamb roast in the same pot with rosemary instead of thyme is every bit as good. If you like this style of cooking, the round pot roast with root vegetables is its close cousin from the same share.

Storage and Leftovers

Leftover pot roast keeps in the fridge for 3 to 4 days, stored in its gravy so it stays moist, and freezes well for up to 3 months. Reheat it gently in a covered pan with a splash of water. The leftover move worth planning for: pull the cold beef into shreds, warm it through in the gravy and pile it onto buttered toast or into a quick pie with a sheet of puff pastry over the top. One roast, two dinners — that's the quiet economy of the biggest cut in the box.

The roast turns up in Pack A and Pack C of our grass-fed beef CSA share — reserve yours and the slow cooker does the rest.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to brown the roast first?

No — this recipe is built to skip it. Browning adds a little extra depth if you have ten spare minutes, but the tomato paste and long cook carry the flavour on their own.

Can I cook it on HIGH instead?

You can — about 4 to 5 hours on HIGH — but LOW gives a noticeably more tender result on a lean roast. If you can start it in the morning, LOW is worth it.

My pot roast came out tough. What went wrong?

Almost always it just needed longer. A lean roast passes through a tough stage before the connective tissue melts — if it doesn't give way to a fork, put the lid back on and give it another hour.

Can I put the roast in frozen?

No — thaw it in the fridge first, which takes about 24 to 36 hours for a 1.4kg roast. A frozen roast spends too long at unsafe temperatures in a slow cooker.

Will the potatoes go mushy over 8 hours?

Halved chat or washed potatoes hold their shape well under the beef. Avoid cutting them small, and skip floury varieties like coliban if you can.

0 commentson Slow Cooker Pot Roast with Carrots and Potatoes

Three Simple Steps

A whole table of real food.

Your Farmers grow grass-fed beef and lamb, pastured eggs and the best eco-grown veggies and produce — every item grown to the same ecological standard, every farmer one you can know by name. One subscription, your whole real-food shop.

01

Reserve your share — or try a pack

Subscribe to a share of the harvest, or start with a one-off fixed pack.

02

Make it your own

Pick your delivery rhythm and what's in the box. Skip or cancel anytime — no lock-in.

03

Cook, savour, know your farmer

We deliver in a reusable esky we collect next time. No couriers, no waste.

5.0
Vendor:Your Farmer

CSA Grass Fed Beef Share

Price$176.67
Vendor:Your Farmer

CSA Pastured Lamb Share

Price$183.33
Vendor:Your Farmer

Grass-Fed Steak Box

Price$158.89
Vendor:Your Farmer

Grass-Fed Mince, Sausage and Diced Beef Pack

Price$264.44
Vendor:Your Farmer

Grass-Fed Beef and Lamb BBQ Box

Price$286.67
Vendor:Your Farmer

Pastured Lamb Roast and Slow-Cook Box

Price$155.56
Vendor:Your Farmer

Quarter, Half or Whole Cow: Grass-Fed Beef, Cut Your Way

Price$1,145.00
Vendor:Your Farmer

Whole Pastured Lamb, Cut Your Way

Price$525.00

More Recipes

View all

Osso buco-style braised grass-fed lamb chump chops in tomato sauce over soft polenta, topped with gremolata.

Osso Buco-Style Braised Chump Chops with Gremolata

The Milanese treatment — chops braised low in white wine and tomato, lifted at the end by lemony gremolata

Osso buco is Milan's great braise, and the finishing touch is what makes it: gremolata, a raw scatter of lemon zest, garlic and parsley chopped fine, stirred in right at the end. Against an hour and a half of slow, rich braising, that fresh, sharp hit is a revelation — it stops the whole thing feeling heavy and makes you reach for another spoonful. Lamb chump chops stand in beautifully for the traditional veal shin here, their fat and connective tissue melting into a glossy sauce over soft polenta. It takes time, but almost none of it is yours. This is a dish to be proud of.

Read moreabout Osso Buco-Style Braised Chump Chops with Gremolata

A thick bowl of split pea and lamb bone soup topped with shredded lamb and mint.

Split Pea and Lamb Bone Soup

Pea-and-ham thinking, straight from the lamb paddock

Every Australian family has a pea-and-ham soup story, and every one of those soups leans on the same trick: a bone in the pot doing the heavy lifting. This is that trick with lamb bones instead of a hock. The split peas collapse into a thick, velvety base, the bones give the broth real depth and body, and a pinch of smoked paprika stands in for the smokehouse if you want that familiar edge. It's the thriftiest pot in this whole collection — pantry peas, add-on bones, one lazy afternoon — and it eats like a hug.

Read moreabout Split Pea and Lamb Bone Soup

Grass-fed T-bone steak sliced and served with homemade tarragon bearnaise and chips, bistro style.

T-Bone with Bearnaise from Scratch

The sauce that turns a steak into an occasion

Béarnaise has a reputation as chef's territory — it isn't. It's three egg yolks, a sharp tarragon reduction and a stream of warm butter, whisked over gentle heat until it turns thick, glossy and faintly wobbly. Twenty minutes of honest attention, most of it while the steak rests. And there's no better steak to learn it on than a grass-fed T-bone: the fillet side was born for béarnaise, and the sirloin side isn't far behind. This is occasion cooking you can pull off on an ordinary Saturday.

Read moreabout T-Bone with Bearnaise from Scratch