Pressure Cooker Pot Roast – herb infused and made with the Instant Pot
I recently purchased an Instant Pot pressure cooker and have been experimenting with recipes. This pressure cooker pot roast is hands down the best chuck roast I’ve ever cooked AND probably ever eaten. I usually cook a pot roast in my slow cooker for 8 or more hours to get that fall apart goodness…but that won’t be happening any more!
You might be wondering why I decided to get an electric pressure cooker when I have a pressure canner/cooker for my stove top. It is a fair question. Frankly my pressure canner is huge and takes a long time to heat up for canning. Not to mention a stove-top pressure cooker needs to be watched fairly closely; while an Instant Pot is a set it and go device. Yes there are less expensive electric pressure cookers on the market too – but I wanted the Instant Pot’s stainless steel cooking pot.
Ok enough jibber about the pots – let’s get to the grub! This roast was so good I couldn’t wait to share the recipe with you, even to get better pictures! So please excuse my cell phone shots here. Trust me, the pictures do not do this pressure cooker pot roast justice!
Pressure Cooker Pot Roast – Instant Pot
Ingredients
4 lbs chuck roast
Coconut oil for browning
1 white or yellow onion
4 sprigs of fresh thyme
4 sprigs of fresh rosemary
9 whole cloves of garlic
1.5 cups of beef broth
Salt and pepper to taste
6 whole peeled carrots (optional)
Directions
- Turn your Instant Pot pressure cooker to the Saute setting and allow it to heat up
- While it is heating up salt and pepper one side of your chuck roast
- Once the Instant Pot display says hot, add your coconut oil to the pot
- Immediately put in the chuck roast, seasoned side down
- Salt and Pepper the other side of the roast while it is browning
- Brown both sides for about 5 minutes each (please don’t skip the browning step – it makes all the difference!)
- Now add in your broth over the meat
- Top with onion, thyme, rosemary and garlic
- Add your whole carrots to the top (they may barely fit but that’s ok, we don’t want them soaking in the broth)
- Close and lock your lid
- Now set your Instant Pot to Meat/Stew and adjust the time to 65 minutes
- Once the cooking is completed allow for a natural release of about 20-25 minutes
- Careful removing your chuck roast – it will be falling apart
- Serve with some mashed potatoes and a green veggie and you have a complete meal
Printable version of the recipe here – Instant Pot Roast Beef
You’ll notice all the flavors are infused into the meat, carrots and the au jus juice (which I spooned over the tators and the meat).
We got an instant pot for Christmas and haven’t used it yet. Work is cancelled for the next couple days due to cold weather in northern Illinois, so I want to try it out. We don’t have any children, and our parents don’t live on the property, so it’s only my wife and I. If I were to half this recipe, how does that affect the cooking time?
No, you shouldn’t have to reduce it that much. Maybe take 10 minutes off. The BIG thing is letting it naturally release so it falls apart. Enjoy!
CAN YOU PUT IT ON THE “PRESSUE COOK” SETTING?
What size pressure cooker do you have? I’m trying to figure out if I need a smaller roast or not. Thank you.
I am using a 6 qt Instant Pot
Followed the recipe to a T and my roast turned out like rubber. Couldn’t even cut it with a knife. No idea what I did wrong 🤷🏻♀️
Did you quick release or natural release?
Omg this recipe was fantastic!!! I used a 3qt Lux Mini Instant Pot, 2.5lbs of meat so just a tad more than half of what the recipient calls for, adjusted the other ingredients to stay in proportion. Followed to the T otherwise, cooked for 60min and let it sit about 25-30min after it was done to ensure it absolutely released pressure on its own accord. The meat fell apart in all of its glory. I’m a vegetarian but my husband greatly enjoyed!
I love reading this! 🙂
I just made this pot roast, followed the recipe exactly as written, but my roast came out like rubber and I can’t even cut it it’s so tough 😔🤦🏻♀️
Did you do a natural release or a forced pressure release? I make this all the time and the only time it has been tough it when I try to fast release the pressure.
It came out delicious! Thank you for the recipe. I substituted chicken broth because I didn’t have beef broth and added fresh parsley. Next time I will add potatoes too.
You need to specify if you are cooking on high or low “pressure adjust” this could be the discrepancy in “fall apart” and “rubber”