Slow Cooker French Dip with Horseradish and Au Jus

As I mentioned before in a recent post, my wife and I have started preparing our dinners weeks in advance, freezing them, and then cooking them in our slow cooker when we want them.  This was due, in large part, to not having time to make a proper homemade dinner every night because our time is usually taken by our nine month-old son.  We had been picking up fast food a few times a week because of it, and wanted to start making dinner at home more often.  My wife found a number of sites that specialized in slow cooker freezer meals for busy families through Pinterest, and we decided to give them a shot.  The process has been mostly positive, with a couple being mediocre or downright bad, and a couple being fantastic.

French Dip with Cheddar, Horseradish, and Au Jus

The rump roast after slow cooking for six hours,
soaking in the au jus, which I can only describe
as fantastic.

This meal is a slow cooker meal, but it actually wasn't premixed and frozen due to it requiring a five pound roast.  The ingredients are fairly simple, and you really just have to toss them all together and let the slow cooker run on low for six to eight hours.  The original recipe we used can be found here, though we changed it up slightly since neither of us are big fans of beef stock.  In its place, we used chicken stock, which sounds like it might not go well with the roast, but actually compliments it quite well.  The results were fantastic, shredding the meat when it was done, placing it on a toasted roll with some cheddar and horseradish, and dipping it in the au jus that was left in the slow cooker.  The original recipe suggests straining the au jus so that no meat bits were left, but if you are careful this step really isn't necessary.  It is really so simple, and makes food that will last for days.  The meat reheats really well too, so leftovers are almost as good as fresh.  This is, by far, our favorite meal using the slow cooker so far, and while it isn't as easy to prepare ahead of time since it can't all be bagged and frozen together, it is still really easy and definitely worth the few extra minutes of prep time.  A picture is definitely worth a thousand words in this case, so I will leave the rest of the description to my camera.

We used Black Stack Porter
as our beer, but any dark
beer will work.

Ingredients

• 5 pounds Beef Rump Roast
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp Grill seasoning
• 1 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
• 2 Tbsp beef bouillon granules
• 2 Tbsp minced onion
• 1 1/2 cup chicken stock
• 12 ounces beer (darker the better, I used Black Stack Porter)
• Toasted hoagie rolls
• Cheddar Cheese (optional)
• Horseradish (optional)

Instructions

• Add all ingredients into the slow cooker
• Turn slow cooker onto low, cook for 6-8 hours
• shred / slice and remove meat
• strain (not required) au jus and separate
• Put meat on roll (toasted is better)
• Add cheese and horseradish
• Put au jus in cup, dip, and enjoy