Slow Cooker Balsamic Shredded Beef
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Slow Cooker Shredded Balsamic Beef might be the easiest and very best slow cooker meal I’ve ever made for my family. You simply can’t beat the aroma of slow cooked chuck roast. It’s one of the best dump-and-go meals you’ll find!
Reasons You’ll Love This Recipe
- Everyone, from preschoolers to adults, devours this tender, flavorful dinner at our house.
- Impressive enough to serve for Christmas dinner or birthday dinner.
- Like our Slow Cooker Short Ribs recipe, it’s a dump and go slow cooker meal. Perfect to put in the Crock Pot at the beginning of the day!
- It’s freezer friendly. Double and freeze one for your future self!
- It’s high in protein with 21 grams per serving. We explain how important protein is in our Round up of High Protein Slow Cooker recipes.
- Serve it over Boursin Mashed Potatoes, Healthy Mashed Potatoes, or polenta (pictured) which are perfect for all that extra sauce left in the crockpot.
- Use the leftover shredded beef on Bread Machine Wheat Rolls as “french dip” sandwiches the next night. Again, a huge win!
Ingredients You’ll Need
These are the flavor-enhancing ingredients that you’ll need for this dump-and-go slow cooker meal…
- Beef broth – If you don’t have this on hand, chicken broth will work.
- Balsamic vinegar – This is a key ingredient that adds a slightly sweet, acidic note.
- Soy sauce – Use low sodium soy sauce, because you can also add salt at the end if needed (but you can’t take it out). Gluten-free option: Use coconut aminos or gluten-free Tamari Soy Sauce.
- Honey – Adds a little sweetness to balance out the salt and acid.
- Garlic – I just used minced garlic from the store to save time.
- Boneless roast beef – Look for a beef roast with some marbling throughout, which adds a lot of flavor. Chuck or round roast works well.
How to Make Balsamic Shredded Beef
Add Ingredients to Crock Pot
Put roast beef into slow cooker and season with Kosher salt and pepper on all sides. In a small bowl, mix together all remaining ingredients. Pour over roast beef.
Slow Cook the Beef
Place a lid on top and cook on LOW for at least 8 hours, until the beef easily shreds.
Shred and Serve
Use two forks to shred the roast. Stir into the sauce and serve warm.
How to Serve Balsamic Shredded Beef
Here are a few ideas of how to serve this savory-sweet Shredded Beef:
- Serve over Instant Pot Mashed Potatoes, Cream Cheesy Mashed Sweet Potatoes, or polenta (as pictured), and drizzle the juices from the cooker over it all.
- Use the meat for mini sandwiches on rolls. Put the au jus (leftover juices) from the cooker in small ramekins for dipping…like Crockpot French Dip!
- Serve with our Microwave Corn on the Cob or our Baby Boiled Potatoes.
How to Freeze Slow Cooker Shredded Beef
This recipe works great to prep ahead and freeze, so you may want to cook two roasts at once in a large crockpot. It should take about the same amount of time. Cook until they shred easily.
Here are two methods for turning this into a freezer meal:
Method 1: Uncooked
To Freeze: Place all ingredients together in a freezer-friendly plastic bag and freeze. To prepare, let bag thaw in refrigerator for 24 hours.
To Prepare: After thawed, cook as directed.
Method 2: Fully Cooked
To Freeze: Fully cook the meal (through Step #4). Let it cool completely. (Safety Note: Do not let the meat sit on the counter more than 2 hours.) Store meat and sauce in a freezer container or freezer bag after it’s cooled completely.
To Prepare: There are at least three safe ways to defrost and warm up this meal.
- Let meat thaw in the fridge for 24-48 hours and then warm gently on the stovetop or in the microwave. (This is the preferred method.)
- From frozen on stovetop: Place the frozen meat and sauce on the stovetop in a pot over medium-low heat. Dump 1 cup of water or beef broth over the top. Put a lid on and stir periodically until warmed through.
- From frozen in microwave: Place frozen meat and sauce in a microwave-safe bowl. Use the DEFROST setting to thaw, stirring occasionally. Then heat in the microwave on the COOK setting in 30-60 second increments until warmed through.
Recipe FAQs
Chuck roast is a popular choice because it turns out so tender when slow cooked. Brisket, rump roast, and short ribs would also work.
In our tests, we didn’t notice a significant enough difference in the end result to justify the time and mess it takes to sear the beef.
No, the USDA says it’s not safe to cook a frozen roast in a slow cooker. It will sit in the “danger zone” temperature where bacteria grows at a rapid pace for too long. It’s important to thaw the roast in the refrigerator for about 2 days ahead of time first.
Can You Make Shredded Beef in the Instant Pot?
You bet! Just follow the instructions in the recipe below but make the following changes:
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- Cut the beef into 2×2 pieces.
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- Place the beef and the sauce in a 6-quart Instant Pot. Lock and seal the lid. Cook at high pressure for 30 minutes. Allow the pressure to release naturally for 10+ minutes.
If you want to know how to convert other recipes to the Instant Pot, be sure to download our Instant Pot Cooking Times Chart.
We also have a cookbook that gives slow cooker AND Instant Pot instructions for EVERY recipe. You can check out From Freezer to Cooker here.
More Dump-and-Go Recipes
If you like this easy crockpot recipe, be sure to try a few of these favorites.
Did you make this? Snap a photo and tag us on Instagram at @thrivinghome so we can see your creations and cheer you on!
Slow Cooker Balsamic Shredded Beef
Slow cooker balsamic shredded beef is packed full of flavor and oh-so-easy to savor. So. Good.
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 – 3 pound boneless beef chuck roast
- Kosher salt and pepper
- 1 cup beef broth (or sub chicken stock)
- 1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
- 2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce (Gluten-free option: Use coconut aminos or gluten-free Tamari Soy Sauce)
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (increase if you want more heat)
Before You Begin! If you make this, please leave a review and rating letting us know how you liked this recipe! This helps our business thrive & continue providing free recipes.
Instructions
Make It Now:
- Put roast beef into slow cooker and season with Kosher salt and pepper on all sides.
- In a small bowl, mix together all remaining ingredients. Pour over roast beef.
- Slow cook on LOW for about 8 hours, or until meat easily shreds apart.
- Using two large forks, shred the meat apart in the slow cooker.
- Serve meat warm on top of mashed potatoes or polenta (pictured). Alternatively, serve on a bun or ciabatta roll with sauce on the side for dipping, like French Dip Sandwiches.
Freeze For Later:
Method 1: Uncooked
To Freeze: Place all ingredients together in a freezer-friendly plastic bag and freeze. To prepare, let bag thaw in refrigerator for 24 hours.
To Prepare: Thaw in the fridge overnight and then cook as directed.
Method 2: Fully Cooked
To freeze: Fully cook the meal (through Step #4). Let it cool completely. (Safety Note: Do not let the meat sit on the counter for more than 2 hours.) Store meat and sauce in a freezer-safe container after it’s cooled completely.
To thaw: Use one of these safe thawing methods and then warm on the stove over low heat or in the microwave.
Notes/Tips
- Instant Pot Instructions: Cut the beef into 2×2 pieces, and place the beef and sauce in a 6-quart Instant Pot. Lock and seal the lid. Cook at high pressure for 30 minutes. Allow the pressure to release naturally for 10+ minutes.
- To Thicken the Sauce: If you’d like to thicken up the sauce at the end, here’s how. After removing the cooked roast to shred it, turn the slow cooker to HIGH. In a small bowl, stir together 2 tablespoons cornstarch with 2 tablespoons water until smooth. Whisk that into the sauce in the slow cooker, cover, and cook for about 30 minutes or until thickened. (For the instant pot, turn on the Saute function after removing the cooked roast and whisk in the cornstarch slurry. It should thicken up in 1-2 minutes.)
- Gluten-Free Version: Replace the soy sauce with coconut aminos or gluten-free Tamari soy sauce.
- Storage Tip: A great way to store this freezer meal or leftovers is in our favorite freezer meal containers. Either store in the fridge for up to 3 days or in the freezer for 3 months.
- Where We Get Our Beef: We get our beef from ButcherBox. The beef is grass-fed and curated from trusted farms. We highly recommend this service to source healthy meat–like uncured bacon, chicken, and wild salmon–and have used it for years ourselves.
- We also have a similar recipes for Slow Cooker Short Ribs and Crock Pot Beef Bourguignon.
And what is the cook time in the slow cooker?
The recipe card will have that information for you. There was a glitch where it wasn’t showing. It’s there now!
What size/how many pounds of the beef do you suggest? Your ingedients list only says “Boneless roast beef”.
The recipe card will have that info for you. There was a glitch where it wasn’t showing. It’s there now!
Hi, this looks like a tasty recipe, but I think there’s an issue with the page. It has most of your usual sections, but not the section with the actual box with the recipe instructions. And also notable, there is no “jump to recipe” button at the top of the page. I have several other tabs open, with other recipes from your site, and they all look normal, so I don’t think it’s my browser/settings/etc. So maybe something you could check on please? Thanks!
Thanks for the heads up. We are working on the glitch! Really appreciate you taking the time to let us know. Ugg, technology.
Thank you so much for bringing this to our attention! We have everything fixed now. 🙂
So I need to make this for 50 people. Could I use a roasting oven or 2?
Hi Kathy. I haven’t tested this recipe in a roasting oven myself, but I’m sure you could (I just don’t know the timing or temp). I think you could easily double the size of the meat in each 6 quart slow cooker, if you could borrow more.
Does it matter what size chuck roast you use? I got a monster one in my grocery pick up yesterday — 4 pounds. Should I increase the other ingredients?
Good question. This makes a lot of sauce. I think you should be totally fine keeping the amounts the same.
Awesome! Thanks for your help. 🙂
Always happy to help!
Looking forward to making this for company In slow cooker so I could time with my
Company
It’s a great one for a crowd for sure. I serve over mashed potatoes with a side salad and our guests love it. 🙂
Make some every month and keep half in freezer for bbq or stroganoff or beef pies during a work wee
Such a great idea!!
This may be a strange question…. Do you think this will work with venison roast?
I’ve actually never made venison so I’m not sure. Maybe ask in our private Facebook group called “Thriving Home’s Freezer Foodies”. I bet someone in there knows!
So simple to make & SO delicious! Hubby loved it! Willbe on the regular rotation.
Thanks for the feedback, Kathy. Love hearing this!
Delicious!! My guests really enjoyed the beef also. They took some home.
Love that. Thanks for the review and feedback!
This sounds great! Is there something I could use in place of the honey? We are currently watching carbs and sugar 🙂
I think leaving the sweetener out of this will change the recipe fairly substantially. Maybe try cutting it in half?
This is a great recipe. It’s actually pretty similar to a Filipino dish called adobo, which has many regional variations. The one my father made uses white vinegar instead of balsamic, and uses bay leaves and peppercorns instead of honey and red pepper flakes. You can use any meat, and it’s served over rice. This recipe took me back to my childhood!
Thanks for sharing about your experience, Mike. I’ll have to research that dish now. I’m glad you liked this version.
I haven’t made this recipe yet.. and I stress the yet! Having read your replies to others, and seeing the work that you do, I just wanted to thank you. You are so willing to help others, share knowledge, and spread joy. You’re such a kind and sweet person. You have a positive impact on many people’s lives through the work you do. Your fingerprints can be found in many kitchens, all over, for years to come. Think about that.
I love seeing someone sharing their time and using their gifts to help others. Your love is a witness, and it made my day! Thank you!
Well, thank you so much for that kind word! That’s my heart as a blogger/business owner–to share what I’ve learned and been given in order to bless others. I’m grateful for this work and the people I get to serve (and learn from!).
This recipe is a keeper! Easy and so tasty! One of our family’s new favorites!
Thanks for taking the time to leave feedback, Regina. We’re so glad you enjoyed this one!
So easy & delicious! My whole family raves about this meal. My very picky 2 year old even asked for more! I love how easy it is to make and that I can put it in the crockpot in the morning & not have to worry about making supper later in the day.
Wonderful, Lucy! Thanks for sharing.
Could you bake in the oven on low heat?
I haven’t tested it this way, but I’m sure you could in a Dutch oven with the lid on. A quick google search and I found a recipe from The Pioneer Woman that says cook at 275°F for 3 hours for a 3 lb roast or 4 hours for 4-5 lb roast. She is usually reliable. Give yourself extra time, in case it’s not fall-apart tender when you check it. Hope that helps!