German-Style Pot Roast With Beer Gravy Recipe

It's hard to forget the smell of slowly simmered beef and tender potatoes wafting through the house on a chilly autumn day. If you grew up in the Midwest, it's likely that pot roast is a core childhood memory for you; a meal that invited coziness into your home in the form of tender carrots and savory gravy. Pot roast is a European staple that was created as a means to use up tough cuts of meat and the remnants of a winter pantry. In Italy, it came to rely on fresh tomatoes and wine, while in France the gravy is thinned to a silky sauce. German pot roast utilized vinegar, juniper berries, and gingersnaps to flavor the beef, creating what we know today as sauerbraten.

Sauerbraten is named for the uniquely sour-sweet taste that the beef takes on. While worthwhile, the cooking process is intense, usually taking upwards of three days. This recipe written with developer (and pot-roast-loving Midwest native) Michelle McGlinn pays homage to the unique flavor of the German dish while emphasizing other great aspects of German cuisine. Though it doesn't take three days, it is a dish to make on a slow weekend day so you can savor the aromas as you cook. The savory gravy is made with Bavarian bratwurst and dunkel beer, with fragrant notes of juniper berry, rosemary, and thyme. Marinated with stone ground mustard, this rich and tangy roast is perfectly balanced with all of the best flavors of German cuisine.

You'll first need a beef chuck roast, salt, stone ground mustard, garlic, and olive oil to start the pot roast. If you don't have stone-ground mustard, Dijon will work in a pinch. From there, you'll also need a bratwurst link, a Spanish (or yellow) onion, beef broth, and beer. We chose a dark, malty German beer style called Dunkel for this recipe; if you can't find Dunkels, try another dark beer like Guinness or a brown ale. To season the stew, you'll need juniper berries, black pepper, bay leaves, thyme, and rosemary. Then, you'll just need carrots, potatoes, red cabbage, butter, and some flour to finish up.

Rub the beef chuck on all sides with salt, then rub with mustard and grated garlic.

Place the beef roast on a sheet tray fitted with a wire rack and store in the refrigerator for 8 to 12 hours.

When ready to cook, remove the beef chuck from the refrigerator. Heat the oil in a Dutch oven over medium heat.

Add the beef chuck and sear it on all sides until deeply browned, about 4 minutes per side. Remove and reserve.

Add the sausage slices and onion to the pot with the oil and cook until the sausage is browned and the onion is softened.

Add the beer, scraping any browned bits from the bottom of the pot. Simmer until reduced by half, about 5 minutes.

Add the beef broth, juniper berries, pepper, bay leaves, thyme, and rosemary. Tie the bay leaves, thyme, and rosemary together in a bouquet for easier removal.

Preheat the oven to 325 F.

Return the beef chuck to the pot and bring to a boil.

Cover and place in the oven. Roast for 2 hours.

Remove the Dutch oven from the oven, add the carrots, potatoes, and cabbage, cover, and return the pot to the oven.

Once the beef is pull-apart tender and the vegetables are softened, about 90 minutes longer, remove the pot from the oven.

Remove the beef roast from the pot.

Mix together the softened butter and flour until very well combined.

Bring the pot of vegetables and liquid to a simmer over medium heat. Add the butter mixture and stir to combine.

Simmer until thickened, about 4 minutes. Remove from the heat.

Return the beef to the gravy and serve.

To make gravy, you need to incorporate either flour or cornstarch into liquid in order to create a thick texture. In many pot roasts, the easiest way to incorporate the flour is at the very beginning, when searing the beef. If you coat the beef with flour, the flour combines with the oil and beef fat to create a thickening roux that slowly turns the liquid into gravy while the pot roast cooks. From there, a cornstarch slurry can be used to further thicken loose gravy at the very end.

This pot roast is a little different because the beef is marinated in mustard, making it difficult to also coat in flour. Instead, let the beef braise in the mustard-and-beer-filled liquid, and incorporate the flour at the very end using a beurre manié. French for "kneaded butter," beurre manié allows the butter to melt into the hot liquid, slowly releasing the flour while you whisk so that the liquid can thicken without clumping. If you add the flour without using softened butter, the flour will clump into thick, gluey balls — plus, your gravy won't have the buttery richness the beurre manié provides.

Of course, pot roast is traditionally made in — you guessed it — a pot, typically a Dutch oven capable of both searing meats on the stove and braising them in the oven. This method only takes a few hours, but admittedly the dish can't be left unsupervised the way a slow cooker can. If you want to make this roast in a slow cooker, follow the instructions for marinating and searing, then transfer the ingredients to a slow cooker and cover with beer, broth, and seasonings. Cook on low for 6 to 7 hours or on high for 3 to 4, until the beef is nearly tender, then add the potatoes, cabbage, and carrots and cook for another 90 minutes until the beef is pull-apart tender. The gravy can be made in the slow cooker with the heat turned to high.

You can also make this pot roast in an Instant Pot, though you may need to slice the meat into large chunks in order to fit the roast into the basin. Marinate the beef, then sear it directly in the Instant Pot using the saute function. Brown the sausage and soften the onions, then add all the ingredients including the vegetables to the pot and seal the lid. Pressure cook for 60 minutes, natural release for 10, then remove the roast from the pot and use the saute function again to whisk the butter mixture into the remaining liquid.