Mississippi Pot Roast is not, in any way, a “historical” Mississippi dish. It’s generally credited to Robin Chapman from Ripley, and went kinda viral about 15 years ago.
In the canonical version of the “recipe”, you stick a chuck roast in a crock pot, add a packet of ranch seasoning, a packet of gravy mix,, a stick of butter and some pepperoncini peppers and cook the hell out of it.
I don’t generally cook this sort of thing. I don’t like all the sodium and fake taste you get in packets, and when I have tried viral recipes in the past, I find them very mid at best.
And who the hell can afford chuck roast these days?
But the other day I was at the store and in the ‘about to go out of date’ meat counter, there was a nice sized chuck roast, and so, I decided to try to make one but without the packets. I wanted to try to make a Mississippi Roast from scratch.
In searching, I came across this recipe from the blog Downshiftology. I made it virtually verbatim, and it worked perfectly. My wife (the primary clientele of my cooking) loved it, and what more can I ask for?
I beefed up (no pun intended) the au jus with some beef broth and corn starch to serve as gravy, and served it with mashed potatoes and rolls.
We will do this again.