Dutch Oven Chuck Roast
One heavy pot, a bed of coals, and three hours you were going to spend sitting around anyway.
- calories
- 620
- weight
- 13 oz
- cal / oz
- 48
- protein
- 45 g
- serves
- 6, scales
- prep
- 15 min
- cook
- 180 min
- total time
- 195 min
- water
- 500 ml boiled
- cost
- $$
Calorie and protein figures are my own estimates, good enough for planning a food bag and not meant as precise nutrition data.
- Dinner
- Dutch oven
- Campfire coals
- Car camping
- Basecamp
- Gluten free
- Dairy free
- Nut free
- One pot
- Pre-mix at home
- Needs a cooler
- Actual cooking
Ingredients
| Chuck roast | 3 lb | one piece, not stew cubes |
|---|---|---|
| Potatoes | 2 lb | quartered, skin on |
| Carrots | 1 lb | cut into thumb lengths |
| Onion | 2 large | quartered |
| Beef bouillon | 2 cubes | |
| Salt, pepper, garlic powder, dried thyme | 3 tbsp total | mixed at home |
| Cooking oil | 2 tbsp |
Method
- Build a fire early and let it burn down. You want coals, not flame, and you want a lot of them.
- Set the dutch oven directly on a bed of coals. Add the oil, then the roast. Sear it hard on both sides, about five minutes a side. Do not move it while it browns.
- Pour in 500 ml of water and crumble in the bouillon. Scrape the brown stuck to the bottom of the pot into the liquid.
- Dump in the rub, lid the pot, and shovel coals onto the lid. Roughly two-thirds of your coals go on top, one-third underneath.
- Braise about two hours. Rotate the pot a quarter turn every twenty minutes and refresh the coals as they grey out.
- Add the potatoes, carrots, and onion. Lid it again and give it another 45 minutes, until a knife slides into a potato without pressure.
- Pull the roast out and shred it with two forks. Stir it back into the vegetables and liquid, then serve out of the pot.
Chuck is a working muscle, full of connective tissue, and that is the whole point. Cook it fast and it is leather. Cook it three hours under a lid and the tissue turns to gelatin, which is what makes the liquid in the pot worth eating.
The coal split matters more than the recipe does. Most of the heat belongs on the lid, because a dutch oven bottom sitting in embers scorches long before the middle of a three-pound roast gets anywhere. Rotating the pot evens out the hot spots in your fire ring. Vegetables go in late so they finish with the meat instead of dissolving into it.
Packing
Rub goes in a small jar at home so you are not juggling four spice tins over a fire. Roast stays in the cooler in its own bag, on the bottom, under the ice. Vegetables ride in a mesh sack outside the cooler.
Variations
- Skip the water and use a can of beer or a can of crushed tomatoes for the braise liquid.
- Leftover shredded beef reheats into tacos or fills a mountain pie iron the next morning.
https://www.huntingpa.com/threads/easy-camp-meals.342151