Crock Pot Fancy Beef for Two (or more)

This Crock Pot Fancy Beef recipe is so delicious you’ll want to put it on the regular meal planning rotation. It is perfect with your favorite mash recipe! Now updated with Instant Pot directions.

I’ve rediscovered my crock pots and it’s awesome. It started with this delicious fancy beef for two recipe.

I was trying a recipe my mom had made but I didn’t really check before I started and did way more improvising and ingredient swapping than recipe following but it was so good I’m totally hooked.

Last week I used my small slow cooker twice and it was great. I’m going to try and make at least one crock pot meal a week because they turned out SO good.

This is technically a roast recipe but it tastes like something I’d order at a nice trendy restaurant not your same old same old crock pot roast.

Fancy Crock Pot Beef Recipe

I love the soft tender texture that the beef gets from being slow cooked all day. Plus the rich gravy is perfect smothering the meat as well as any sides you may want to serve it with!

Beef Crock Pot Ingredients

• 1-2 TBS Vegetable Oil
• 1/2 Onion, chopped
• 2 C Baby Carrots
• 2 Stalks Celery, chopped
• 1 TBS Garlic, minced
• 3 Sprigs Thyme
• 1/2 C Red Wine
• 1 C Broth (I used chicken since that’s what I have on hand)
• 4 oz Tomato Sauce (don’t tell but I used 1 packet boboli pizza sauce since I keep forgetting I have them and need to use them up, but regular tomato sauce should be fine).
• 1 TBS Brown Sugar
• 1 TBS Soy Sauce
• 2 Bay leaves
• 0.75 lbs piece of Beef Chuck Roast cut into two pieces
• 1-2 TBS Flour
• Salt and Pepper

How to make Beef for the Slow Cooker

1. Saute onions, celery, and carrots until onions are transparent in vegetable oil.
2. Add in garlic and time and cook for a few minutes. Scoop out and place into the bottom of the crock pot.
3. Season the beef with salt and pepper.
4. Season the flour with salt and pepper and dredge the beef in the flour.
5. In the same pan that you cooked the veggies brown the all sides of the beef and then place on the veggies in the crock pot.
6. Add wine to the pan to deglaze and reduce the wine by half.
7. Add in tomato sauce, brown sugar, soy sauce, and bay leaves.
8. Stir and pour over the beef in the crock pot.
9. Cook on low 8 hours or on high for 4 hours.

And it’s just as easy as that!

This recipe makes 2 hearty servings but can easily be increased if you want to use a larger roast and have left overs.

How to Make Beef in the Instant Pot

I love the convenience of making this in the pressure cooker. It definitely saves some time! You just need to do things in a slightly different order but no worries it will be just as delicious!

1. Turn the Instant pot to saute and heat up vegetable oil.
2. Season the beef with salt and pepper.
3. Season the flour with salt and pepper and dredge the beef in the flour.
4. Brown beef on all sides and remove from pot.
5. Add in wine and cook for a few minutes and deglaze any bits that have stuck to the bottom of the pot.
6. Press cancel to turn off sauté mode. Add in broth, soy sauce, onions, celery and bay leaf.
7. Next add in beef. Top with garlic, brown sugar and tomato sauce. DO NOT STIR. You want the brown sugar and tomato sauce on the top.
8. Cook on high for 40 minutes. Natural release for at least 15 minutes.
9. After fully releasing the pressure remove the beef and set aside. Add in the carrots and cook for 1 minute.
10. If needed thicken with a corn starch slurry.

But if you’ve been here before you know that we don’t really do leftovers so…. I like to serve this with mashed potatoes super yummy.

This  is  so  yummy I hope  you  enjoy it as much  as  we  do!

Want more yummy slow cooker recipes?

Want more delicious recipes for the crock pot? Check out my delicious Balsamic Cherry Beef Crock Pot Recipe.

And also my Hunger Games inspired Katniss Lamb and Plum Stew (which you can make with beef instead of lamb). 

This spinach artichoke dip for the slow cooker is amazingly delicious that my husband’s coworkers insist that I bring it to every company party lol. It’s so good!