sately

← All recipes

Meals · Roasts, ribs & slow cooker

Salt-crusted chuck pot roast

52

A boneless chuck roast coated in salt and left to dry in the fridge, then cooked low under a tight lid with a splash of water until it pulls apart. Off comes the lid, up goes the oven, and the salted surface turns into a dark, crackly crust over meltingly soft beef.

Time
310 min (70 prep + 240 cook)
Servings
4
Per serving
567 kcal
Protein
55 g

Ingredients

Steps

  1. Pat the chuck dry and rub the salt all over it, pressing it in so the meat looks well coated. Set it on a rack over a tray and refrigerate, uncovered, for at least 1 hour, or overnight for the best crust. The surface will turn dry and a little tacky, which is what you want.
  2. Heat the oven to 300°F. Put the roast in a heavy lidded pot or deep roasting dish and grind the pepper over it. Pour the water in around the meat, not over it, so the salt stays put. Cover tightly with the lid or two layers of foil.
  3. Roast for 3–3 1/2 hours without opening it for the first 2 1/2 hours. It is done when a fork twists into the meat with no resistance, at about 200°F in the center.
  4. Take off the lid, raise the oven to 425°F and roast uncovered for 15–25 minutes, until the top is deep brown, crisp and salty.
  5. Rest the roast for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, pour the juices from the pot into a jug and spoon the fat off the top. Slice it thickly or pull it into big chunks and spoon the juices over. If they taste too salty, let them down with a little water. Leftovers keep 4 days in the fridge; reheat covered, with the juices. The meat freezes for 3 months.

Good to know

Can I use a leaner roast?

Yes. Bottom round works, at about 89 instead of 52. It is firmer and drier than chuck, so buy the same 1.2 kg, slice it thinly across the grain and keep it in the juices.

Will it be too salty?

No: 14 g of salt on 1.2 kg of beef is about 1.2 %, close to the usual seasoning for a roast. Most of it stays on the outside, which is why the crust tastes salty and the middle tastes of beef.

What if I am not strict carnivore?

Onion, carrots and a bay leaf around the meat turn this into a more traditional pot roast.

Alternative

Per

Calories
239
Protein
(40%)
23 g
Fat
(60%)
15 g
Carbohydrates
(0%)
<1 g
of which sugar
<1 g
Fiber
<1 g
Sodium
611 mg

More meals

Computed from the ingredients with our published formula, not yet kitchen-tested. How

As written, 2267 kcal goes into the pot and 1336 g of ingredients comes out as about 948 g of food: 239 kcal per 100 g. Cooking moves water and energy density is the score's biggest lever, so the dish is scored as cooked, not as an average of its parts. Every ingredient links to its food page, with the same data and score. The label's percentages are each macronutrient's share of the calories. The full formula.