Ina Garten's Easy French Trick for Cooking the Best Pot Roast I've Ever Tasted
Pot roast is one of those classic cold-weather dishes that never goes out of style, like beef stew or chicken noodle soup. Even though it’s a fall mainstay, pot roast can also get a bad rap, with a reputation for being bland, boring, and consisting of dried-out beef with overcooked vegetables.
I happen to disagree. A good pot roast can truly be great with a balance of slow-cooked flavor, melt-in-your-mouth tender beef, and perfectly cooked vegetables. All you need is the right recipe. I’ve personally tried a few different pot roast recipes over the years, but was never really able to settle on my ultimate go-to. That is, until I tried one from the legendary Ina Garten that includes a surprising addition that I’ve incorporated time and time again: cognac.
Most pot roast recipes ask you to deglaze the pot after searing the meat with either beef broth or red wine. In her recipe, Ina deglazes with a combination of red wine and cognac. The addition of cognac adds a fruity, spicy flavor to the sauce that makes this recipe stand apart from others I’ve tried.
Plus, this addition is subtle enough (but still impactful) to allow you to be creative without clashing with other ingredients. Because pot roast itself is a combination of pretty basic flavors and techniques, there’s a lot of room to riff and build something with deep flavor tailored to your specific tastes and preferences. You could swap out carrots for parsnips, you could add some spice, you could add a dash of fish sauce to bump up the umami — the possibilities are endless.
Tips for Making Ina Garten’s Pot Roast
Skip tying the herbs. Ina says to tie together branches of fresh thyme and rosemary before throwing them into the pot. The stalks of woody herbs are large and hearty, very quick to spot in a sauce, and easy to fish out with tongs. No need to worry about tying them, in my opinion.
Use beef broth. Obviously you can use any broth in a pot roast — you could even swap in water — but I look at the broth as an opportunity to layer in even more flavor. I like to bump up the beefy essence of this dish by using beef broth instead of the chicken broth that’s called for.
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