Pot roast is a versatile food that can be used in many delicious ways! Here are some tasty tips and leftover roast beef recipes for using your leftover pot roast!
Using Leftover Roast Beef
Ahhh! Can you smell it? Roast beef pot roast and potatoes cooking in the Crockpot. What a yummy smell and even yummier to eat — but then what do you do with the leftovers? Here are some ways to make it taste just as good the second, third and fourth time around.
Purchase a large beef pot roast (5-10 lbs.) on sale. Slow cook the roast and eat it as-is the first night. Then use any of these ideas to make quick meals. If you want to freeze some of the leftover pot roast, just put 1/2-1 lb. per freezer bag in the freezer after it’s been cooked.
Use leftover roast beef in:
- Beef Stroganoff
- Fajitas
- Pepper Steak
- Pocket Sandwiches
- Stir Fry
- Shepherd’s Pie
- Swiss Steak
- Beef And Bacon Pasta
- Roast Beef Sandwiches (with lettuce and mayo)
Leftover Roast Beef Recipes To Use That Leftover Pot Roast
Here is our super easy slow cooked pot roast recipe, along with lots of great leftover roast beef recipes to use every delicious bite! This slow cooked roast is one of our most popular recipes because it’s so tender and shreds easily. It makes its own juice, which you can use on its own or use to make the pot roast gravy below!
This easy pot roast recipe is super versatile. You can serve it with rice or potatoes and the vegetable of your choice. Then use the leftover roast beef recipes below or improvise your own recipes to make several more meals from one roast!
Slow Cooker Pot Roast Recipe
This delicious slow cooker pot roast recipe is easy to make with 5 minutes preparation time in an oven or a crockpot. I include the oven instructions first because I prefer to make it in the oven and crockpot instructions below!
Ingredients
1 beef roast, 3-5 lbs.
1 onion, sliced
1 can cream of mushroom soup (omit for GF and sprinkle with seasoned salt)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 250°.
- Place roast in pan.
- Pour cream of mushroom soup and onion on top.
- Cover tightly. Bake at 250° for 1 hour.
- Then turn it down to 225° and cook for 6-8 hours (about 6 hours for a smaller roast and 8 hours for a larger roast). When done, it should be so tender that the meat easily pulls off the roast with a fork. Serves 4 when you use a 3-5 lb. roast.
Slow Cooker Instructions:
If you prefer to cook this slow cooked roast in a crockpot or slow cooker, place the ingredients in the crockpot and cook on low for 8-10 hours or high for 5-6 hours. For the most tender roast, it is best to cook longer on a lower temperature.
Use a meat thermometer to make sure the internal temperature reaches 145°.
Notes
- This slow cooked roast recipe can be cooked in the oven or a slow cooker. The secret is in the slow cooking. I prefer to cook it in the oven because I think it gives the roast a little bit better taste than the crockpot, but if you prefer a slow cooker, you will still end up with a tender and tasty roast.
- This slow cooker pot roast recipe is an excellent way to prepare inexpensive roasts. This slow cooked roast recipe makes them so tender they fall off the bone and are almost impossible to lift out of the pan.
- This recipe is an excellent way to make a delicious meal for Sunday after church or for guests, because it can cook for 2 or 3 hours longer than required without overcooking.
- Since it is so tender that no meat is left on the bone, you get more pot roast for your money.
Brown Gravy Recipe For Pot Roast
Ingredients
Meat broth
1 cup cold water
2 Tbsp. flour or 1 Tbsp. cornstarch
salt and pepper
Instructions
Add at least one or two cups of water to the roasting pan of your roast, pork or chicken while the meat is cooking. Remove the meat when done and skim off the fat. Put the pan on a stove top burner on medium heat.
Put flour or cornstarch in a jar. Add cold water. (You could also add 1/4 cup dry milk.) Cap and shake until all the lumps are gone.
Pour the flour mixture slowly into the simmering broth and stir constantly until thickened. If there is a lot of liquid, you may need to use more flour. Salt and pepper to taste. Serves 4.
Easy Barbecue Beef Recipe
Here’s an easy and delicious barbecue beef sandwiches recipe you can make in just a few minutes! It’s a great way to use leftover pot roast!
Ingredients
leftover roast beef (pot roast)
barbecue sauce
3 Tbsp. water
Instructions
- Put leftover beef in a saucepan.
- Add water.
- Heat on medium until warmed through.
- Add enough barbecue sauce to coat the roast beef.
- Simmer for 3 minutes.
- Serve on buns, bread or toast.
This leftover roast beef recipe is a great way to stretch a small amount of leftover pot roast to make a main dish for another meal. This beef and noodles recipe can be served with the vegetable or fruit of your choice for a tasty family meal.
Beef and Noodles Recipe
Ingredients
1 lb. leftover pot roast
salt and pepper (to taste)
1 cup water
1 tsp. garlic powder
1/4 cup flour
1 lb. egg noodles, cooked
mushrooms, sliced (optional)
Instructions
Mix water and flour in a jar and shake well. Pour into a saucepan and boil until it starts to thicken. Add roast. Cook until roast is heated through. Add garlic powder, salt and pepper. Serve over cooked noodles or on toast. Serves 6.
Steak and Mushroom Gravy
Ingredients
1 Tbsp. margarine
2 cups water
1/2 onion, chopped
1–2 cups leftover roast beef pot roast
5 Tbsp. flour
1 small can mushroom pieces
salt and pepper (to taste)
1 tsp. beef bouillon powder
5 Tbsp. dry milk
Instructions
Melt margarine in a large skillet and saute onion. Mix flour, salt and pepper and dry milk in a jar. Add water and shake. Stir into onions until simmering and thickened. Add beef, bouillon powder and drained mushrooms. Reduce the heat. Simmer, stirring constantly, until heated through. Serve over noodles, rice or mashed potatoes or toast. Serves 4.
For more quick and easy recipes your family will love, check out the Dining On A Dime Cookbooks here!
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From Tawra’s Inbox:
Hello ladies,
I just want to say a BIG THANK YOU for your slow cooked pot roast recipe! It has been a joke in my family how truly BAD my pot roasts taste. My loved ones dutifully eat it because they see how hard I’ve worked on dinner ( plus they are nearly starved to death by the time dinner is served ) and they see the strained smile on my face as I bring their plates to the table. But even I can barely swallow the roast.
I always followed my “Better Homes and Gardens” cookbook faithfully and would try different cuts of meat, all to no avail; it still turned out so dry and tough.
Enter your help. I have been enjoying flitting about your website and finding all sorts of nuggets of advice. Then I found your slow cooked pot roast recipe! This was the answer I’ve been searching for, lo these many years! I had been cooking it all wrong. I thought I was doomed to buying the pre-cooked roasts-in-a-bag at my local grocery store.
Now my family smiles when they smell the roast cooking as they come home from school. And I feel great knowing I have mastered one of the basic requirements of motherhood… cooking the perfect roast beef.
Thank you for all your great “tips”!
Sincerely, Becky H.
These leftover roast beef recipes are from the Dining On A Dime Cookbook, which includes almost 500 pages of very helpful information to help you learn to work all kinds of magic in the kitchen!
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I have a question about your slow cooked roast. Is that the time and temp for cooking it in the oven? If so then how long should I cook it in the crock pot?
Becki, a good rule of thumb is the low setting on a crock pot is the same as 250 degrees in the oven and the high is 350 degrees. So in this recipe if you used a crock pot you would cook it on low for about 8 -10 hours depending on your pot of course.
I do my roast some what different then from even this recipe. I cook it in the oven for 250 degrees for 1 hour then turn it down to about 170 degrees or as low as my oven will go which sometimes has been slightly higher. This way I can put a roast in Saturday night at about 10 before I go to bed and when we get home from church it is all ready. Also if church runs over an hour or two it doesn’t matter because of the slow cooking. It wouldn’t matter if you had to leave it longer in a crock pot either.
My mothers favorite way to use leftover roast beef was to slice or cut into chunks, place it in a saucepan, poor the leftover gravy on top, cut up a few potatoes and drop those in. If necessary a little added water or broth if there wasn’t enough gravy and a bay leaf and simmer until potatoes are done. You can even add 1/2 an onion thinly sliced if you like. My brothers liked the onion sliced and served raw over this. You could serve this plain with a salad or over leftover rolls or bread.
I’m a Chef by trade and have a consulting business.
Another VERY tasty and healthy item is “Roast Beef Hash.”You can serve it for breakfst, lunch or dinner in any combination w/eggs or without.
1 Tbsp. Cannola
1/2 onion, chopped emince
2 cups leftover beef, trimmed and diced small
1 small red bell pepper – dices small
7 small mushrooms – diced small
1/2 Cup Kale or Spinach
1-2 drops – Worcestershire
1 T basil – Chopped
A). Saute onions until clear
B). Add beef and kale- cook 3-4 minutes. If using spinach ad at the end of the cookin for less than a minute
C). Add Worcestershire Salt & Pepper to taste
D). Eat and enjoy!
My mom’s version of hash was to dice onions and saute, remove and set aside, while you fry diced potatoes in the same skillet. We liked them well browned and crisp. Then we added the chopped up beef (or roast pork) and any gravy we had, until warmed through. Salt and pepper to taste. If you have leftover carrots from your roast, chop them up and add when you add the meat and gravy.
My mother in law would grind up the roast beef, and make patties with the leftover mashed potatoes, probably mixing in an egg to hold them together, and then frying. Yum! This stretched the meat a good bit.
Our favorite way to use the last bits of the roast is in a gravy, (I use beef broth as by now there is not gravy left) and serve this over rice. My family likes rice more than noodles for some reason. It is good either way to me. I can make a 7 pound roast into about 5 good meals. I use some with the roast and sides, onion, potato, carrots…the second meal is hot roast sandwiches on toast with mashed potatoes and gravy, then a stew, and the last two meals will be a soup (just a cup or so of meat) and the beef and gravy over rice.
This had made my stomach start growling!!Yum!
Tried this pot roast yesterday. It was perfect and so yummy. Honestly my family ate and ate, there is not a lot of leftovers. This never happens when I make roast. Usually they groan when I have a roast cooking. Also the delicious smell while it was cooking about drove us mad. This ones a keeper! Thanks
I have two simple crock pot roast recipes that I use frequently.
1. 1 Beef Roast
1 Jar Pepperoncini Peppers
Combine in Crock pot and cook on low 8 hrs
2. 1 Beef roast
1 Pkg Brown Gravy Mix
1 Pkg Ranch Dressing Mix
1 Pkg Italian Dressing Mix
Combine dry mix packets and sprinkle on roast
Cook on low 8 hrs
Both of these are a hit at our church potluck dinners
Left over Pepperoncini roast shredded makes awesome enchiladas.
Is this pot roast spicy got ? I have to ask because my husband is a throat cancer survivor and he can’t eat anything spicy at all it sets him on fire ….thank you !!!
This is not spicy hot but you can adjust this slow cooked roast and season it any way you want. Tawra makes hers like the recipe but I never mine like this at all. I do it like it says but I just use onion pwd and garlic pwd on it – no onions or soup. I then salt when finished. So you don’t need to put anything at all on this roast if you don’t want to.
Hi Tawra,
What would be a good soup substitute for the can of mushroom soup?
You can just leave it out and use seasoned salt.
Terri, I make this, not with leftover roast, but I start with raw chunks of beef. The only pepperocini I’ve ever bought has been very spicy, and I’m a Texas girl who can take the heat. I’d be very careful. Find a mild pepper for your dear hubby.
Jill: I make a similar version of this:
3# Chuck Roast
1 jar Pepperoncinis with juice
1 large onion sliced
2 cloves garlic, slicedd
1 pkg Dry Italian Dressing (like Good Seasons)
1 12 oz Beer (we use Bud Select, but any will do)
Place all ing in stock pot, cover, & bake on 325 for 4 hours. Shred meat and Serve on italian loaf bread with the au jus (juice) on the side for dipping. So yummy
I have made this recipe several times and we love it this way.
I love this recipe with the packet of ranch seasonings, packet of Italian dressing seasoning and packet of brown gravy but don’t forget the water. I add 2 cups of water and the roast is about a 3-pounder. Absolutely delicious with some garlic bread.
My mother was an awesome cook. She would take the leftover roast, cut it into cubes, a small chopped onion, add them to the left over gravy along with peeled and cubed potatoes to the pot, simmer until the potatoes are done. Serve with any vegetable or salad and hot biscuits….makes my mouth water just thinking of it.
I am fortunate to have a good set of ordinary cast iron cookware, including a couple of Dutch Ovens with tight fitting lids. I usually heat a bit of oil or grease in the Dutch Oven, brown a thawed roast on all sides on medium high heat, then add a bit of water, salt and pepper, pop on the lid and then put the whole thing in the oven to slow cook the rest of the way. Root vegetables can be added about 1&1/2 hours before it is done, to cook along with the roast. You can add chopped onions and/or grated garlic just before putting it in the oven. When the meal is ready, Use the drippings to make gravy, adding water to scrape up the brown bits off of the bottom of the pan, if necessary. You can also slow cook a frozen roast if you haven’t had time to thaw it first. You can brown it first, if you like, or just put it in the Dutch Oven in a frozen lump, with salt and pepper and a bit of water. Put on close fitting lid and pop it in the oven. It will take an extra 2 hours or so, depending on it’s size, but be patient, and let the oven do it’s work. I cook most tough cuts of meat at around 325 degrees(at most, and try not to peek too much. Your nose will tell you when it is nearly done.
Hello, just a note that you can save the bones and freeze them till you have 3/4 of a dozen +/- take them and place in a large pot with celery stocks and cook slow for 12 hours and then canning them up you will always have fresh soup stock! And even the dogs love the bones after you have used them up. You can also cook chicken bones and then strain and use that as chicken stock with the small pieces of meat. I enjoy your new letter each week.
Please don’t feed dogs any kind of cooked bone!
EXACTLY! Raw bones ( even raw chicken bones ) are good, but cooked ones splinter and can cause great damage to your pets.
In roast beef recipe, it says to use onion soup mix to season with unless you plan to go (GF). What does gf mean?
Gluten free.
After I have done with most of the roast, I will cut the rest ( small heel) and take the leftover juice, or gravy and make my beef barley soup. I chop and onion, add the broth, a tin of stewed tomatoes, some chopped garlic, any vegetables that are left over in the fridge ( sometimes I will chop up a potato and a carrot raw and add them too), If I have a chunk of rutabaga I most certainly will chop it up and add it ( all chopped items I chop just slightly larger than a pea), add the barley, left over rice…. Throw in a bay leaf, salt and pepper ( and any other item that you particularity like). I make this in my large stock pot, and I have soup for Ken and I for several meals! Just make up some bannock ( plain baking powder biscuits , or fresh bread if you have been baking) and your meal is ready.
The other day we were at our little restaurant ( small hamlet here) and they served ham and cheese sandwich, with sliced tomato and lettuce, mayo, and mustard, on your choice of bread, a small scoop of potato salad, and an even smaller scoop of coleslaw, with a cup of soup. That was 9.95 each ( I had water, Ken didn’t drink anything) with taxes, and a tip we were at $25, I was reading an article that said Canadians on the lowest level of groceries were spending $36, per person per week. Wow, that was almost 1/2 a weeks groceries for a lunch ( which I loved and made a nice break from helping dh with truck repairs.) That $36. is about $26. in U.S. funds. So just making the soup and having a large bowl instead of a little cup is savings. Plus the sandwich and potato salad and coleslaw would be very little to make at home, especially if you cut your roast very thin, you could have a roast beef sandwich all the rest the same for next to nothing. Sure not $25. for 2.
Totally agree with you Pat. So true. That is part of why I have so much trouble eating out any more. I know a couple who can’t make their car payment but go out to eat a couple of times a week which is almost equal to their car payment. Love barley soup and it is extra good because it is so healthy for you that you need only a little meat or veggies to make it. They are mostly for flavor because the barley is so healthy for you on it’s own. For those of you who have Dining on a Dime check it out because we have a chicken and beef recipe for barley soup in there for you if you need it.
For those of you who want more facts about how much eating out is costing you and some of the other things Pat mentioned here check out this post on the web site Stop Eating Your Way Into Debt
Barley soup sounds amazing but my brother won’t eat anything with tomatoes in it.
Another favorite way to use left-over roast (for that last little bit that is almost always left) is to put it on pizza crust with lots of different veggies or to use a dab of BBQ sauce instead of marinara sauce for a BBQ beef pizza.
Oh yum this sounds good Brenda.
I love your newsletter. Keep up the good work. But I would like to see more low fat, low cholesterol recipes.
On your leftover roast beef article, you forgot to include my favorite way to use us left over beef and that is roast beef hash. I like mine fried until all is crispy, then I eat it with catsup and sometimes raw onion. I know some people put gravy on it, but not me. Just a suggestion.
Jackie Martin
confess I haven’t tried this way of making roast yet, but intend to. However, I do say I LOVE Tawra’s roast with cranberry sauce. everyone loves it but can’t quite figure out that secret flavor. My question for you, Jill, is there even a cut of roast that has a bone anymore, I can’t remember last time I saw one, I’d love to make homemade beef stock, they are charging over $5/lb for bones here in MA, which I won’t pay. I want to stop buying canned gravy/gravy mixes, so planning to use “better than boullion” paste to see if it works, but it’s very high in salt. My aunt used to use some sort of a flat cut of chuck roast, which she did with onion soup mix and covered for a long while in the oven, that was fall apart tender also. Hope spring has finally come to your part of the country!
Donna B.
It is warming up nicely here Donna.I feel for all of our readers back East because you have had a really rough winter. You know it is harder to find them with bones but there are still some out there. Here there are anyway. I don’t know about other parts of the country. I can’t believe they are now charging for bones but they are. I use to get them for free all the time from the store and they had chicken necks you could buy for $.10 a lb. to use for soup. I once had a friend who knew nothing about cooking. She asked us over for dinner and it smelt so good. She said she used my recipe where you just pour cream of chicken soup over the chicken and slow cook it for several hours. She also said she got a really good deal on the chicken – it was only $.10 a lb. We set down to eat and come to find out it was chicken necks she had bought and not regular chicken. Interesting meal although I was grateful it wasn’t her tuna casserole. She made that once and accidentally used the tuna cat food instead of the tuna. Cat food was not made almost as good as human food back then. It was nasty. She was serving it to collage guys and they polished off the whole thing thinking it was delicious. She really was my sweetest friend she just couldn’t cook.
Your aunt’s roast sounds a lot like our slow cook recipe. I use to only use chuck roast for that recipe. They taste like the most expensive roasts cooked this way.
Thats an great food idea of reusing the leftover roast. Great!
I also use 1/4 cup of coffee in my roast, after browning all sides I season salt, pepper, garlic powder, add diced onion ,pour coffee in and add enough water to cover 1/2 way up side of roast. I bake mine at 350 for and a half hour then add carrots and potatoes and back in til nice and tender. If I boil potatoes separate I use potato water for extra starch in the gravy.I also use corn starch to thicken. Enjoy! ! Do any of you great cooks have any leftover roast beef recipes that are low to no carb? This means no sandwiches. Thanks for your help! !
Yes I love putting leftover coffee in my roast too. It makes for a darker and richer gravy and you don’t taste the coffee at all. You know Vicki what I do all the time if you want low carb is I make up barbecue beef, hot roast beef gravy on bread and I just eat them without the bun or bread. You can eat all these things and just don’t use the bread and they still taste so good – maybe even better. You really don’t need a lot of recipes either for example my grandma use to keep things very simple. We would have slices of beef on our plate with a sliced tomato, some sliced cucumbers, cottage cheese and some grapes. It always tasted so good but was easy and simple.
We grew up in Germany (father was stationed there) and the American Schools had German cooks in the cafeteria. They used coffee in their gravies all the time.
Becki: I make my chuck roast very similar, but I also add a 1/2 cup of dry red wine (Cab) and 1 cup of Beef Stock. Bake on 325 for 4 hours. I add carrots one hour prior to it being done. We serve it with mashed potatoes.
Hi, I am enjoying your site an recipies, having said that I like to use my Crock Pot when ever I can as we live in Florida so mmost days are 80 or higheer, so my question is this would this recipe work for a Crock Pot?
Thankyou,Granny Sandy
Yes you can – Tawra does hers in the crock pot quite often. 250 degree temp in the oven is same as low on crock pot and the 350 degree is the same as high
My brother doesn’t like roasts in the crock pot. I usually cook them in the oven but they are not as tender. I am going to try to cook only the roast in the crock pot and the veggies in the oven. Maybe he will eat it then.