French Dip Sandwiches

This may indeed be the fastest in terms of prep of all of the crockpot recipes in our house. Combine that with the ridiculously tender, pull-apart beef it yields and you have a real winner on your hands. Officially, this is an "Au Jus" (French for "with juice" - specifically it's own). You will find the "Jus" particularly valuable as a dipping sauce when you serve them.

 In the ingredient list, you will see that it says "beef roast". I have intentionally been vague with the cut of roast, because the fact of the matter is there are several cuts that work just fine for these sandwiches because of the low & slow cooking application. The following is a list of acceptable cuts:

 Chuck Roast - Shoulder Roast - Top Round - Bottom Round

Also because these are sandwiches, you will require some bread. My advice? Jimmy John's "day old" bread. Never heard of it? Here's the deal. Jimmy John's makes fresh bread everyday. When they don't use it all, they keep it and sell it the next day to whomever would like some. They are 24"ish loaves and in my opinion taste exactly like they did the day before (especially with a light toasting). Here comes the best part. THEY ARE $.50 That's not a typo. Half a dollar will get you 2 feet of tasty bread. I'd get 2 or 3 for this recipe. Just go in (or drive thru) and ask for "day old" bread. I of course forgot to swing by Jimmy John's when grocery shopping this week and had to settle for some bread from Sam's. Dang.

Ingredients

1 beef roast (2 to 3 lbs - see list above for specific cuts)

8-12 slices of cheese for melting (Swiss-Havarti-Provolone)

1 onion thinly sliced

4 garlic gloves (minced)

1 14 oz beef broth

1/4 cup soy sauce

1.5 TBSP Worcestershire Sauce

3 TBSP Honey

1 tsp black pepper

Bread for sandwich making

Click here for a PRINTABLE RECIPE.

Place half of your sliced onions in the bottom of the crockpot. This will help keep the meat from sitting directly on the bottom of the pot and also evenly distribute the onions when you are ready to pull the beef.

Mix the beef broth, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, honey, garlic and black pepper in a bowl. 

Place the beef roast on top of the first half of sliced onion and then top with the remaining half of onion. Then, pour the sauce mixture over the top of the beef and onions. Cook on LOW for 8-10 hours.

In 8-10 hours, you should have something that looks like this. If you notice excess liquid or "Jus", don't worry. We will definitely put it to good use even after the beef gets pulled. DON'T even think about pouring off the liquid. 

Use 2 forks to "pull" the beef. It should shred easily. Leave your crockpot on LOW at this point. We are now ready to prep the bread.

No matter your choice of bread, it needs to hold up to all of the Jus that comes with this sandwich. Even if you choose to not directly dip your sandwich, there is enough moisture in the meat that if you don't have appropriately textured bread you will find yourself holding a soggy, mushy mess. Cut your sandwich bread in half and toast in the oven at 400 degrees for 10 minutes. Keep and eye on them as they can go from toast to briquettes quickly if you forget them.

   

After toasting, remove from the oven and place a slice of cheese on each side. You can only use one slice if you'd like, but that would reduce some of the melty, cheesy goodness and that's no fun now is it? Put them back into the 400 degree oven to melt the cheese.

Mmmmmmmm. Now that is a beautfiul thing.

Top with the pulled beef and serve with a side of "Jus".

French Dip with Roasted Sweet Potato Fries