one-pot fall-apart beef: 5 ways

one-pot fall-apart beef: 5 ways

a new cook once, eat five ways combo starring my very favorite beef!

Caroline Chambers

Oct 19, 2026

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Like I

mentioned a few weeks ago

, one of the biggest pieces of feedback I’ve gotten about my new book,

Make It Fast,

is how much you guys love the “five ways” batch protein sections in each chapter, in which I give a base recipe for a make-ahead protein, plus five totally different ways to serve it.

I cook like this often — it’s one of my favorite ways to work smarter, not harder, in the kitchen, and it’s often how I “meal prep” over the weekend ahead of a busy workweek. I don’t mind repeating the same protein a couple days in a row, but I do like to have a little variety between the meals!

So today I’m sharing a new bundle of recipes! We are slow roasting a chuck roast until it’s fall-apart tender, and with it you can choose what you make over the course of the week!

Pepperoncini + shredded beef nachos

Coconut curry shredded beef ramen bowls

Crispy green chili shredded beef tacos

Peanutty beef bowls

Cheesy BBQ sliders

They’re all SO GOOD.

spotlight on my favorite beef!

I’ve been planning to share more of these “five ways” recipe bundles in the newsletter, so when

Snake River Farms

reached out to collaborate this fall, my brain went

straight

to developing a set of recipes using chuck roast — specifically, their

American Wagyu chuck roast

— as the star. Wagyu beef has a ton of fine streaks of marbling throughout it, which makes every bite incredibly rich, flavorful, and tender.

Today’s slow-roasted beef recipe will be delicious using any

chuck roast you can find. That said, using SRF Wagyu beef maximizes the flavor and nutrition.

Especially when I’m batch cooking, I like to work with responsibly sourced, high-quality meat, and Snake River Farms is as good as it gets. I’ve loved with their beef for years and years, ever since I first tasted their

Wagyu hotdogs

(if you’ve been a WTCer for a while, you know about my

SRF Wagyu hotdog obsession

!). They sell American Wagyu beef and Kurobuta pork direct to consumer, and have been family owned and operated since 1968. Their American Wagyu cattle are raised on pasture for the first year, then fed a sustainable, grain-based diet sourced from within a 150-mile radius of the property. They control every aspect of the animals’ lifecycle from genetics to processing, meaning there are no middlemen or murky sourcing. So not only is Snake River Farms’ meat incredibly delicious, they’re a business I feel great about supporting.

Thank you so much to Snake River Farms for supporting this new “five ways” feature.

And now, onto SIX brand new recipes!

This post has bonus content for paid subscribers (a code to get 2 pounds of Snake River Farms Wagyu ground beef for free with your first purchase of SRF meat!). Upgrade to get full access.

base recipe: one-pot fall-apart beef

Yields about 6 to 8 cups of shredded beef

Cook time: 15 minutes of prep time; 3 1/2 to 4 hours of hands-off cook time

Ingredients:

1 (3- to 4- pound) boneless beef chuck roast

1 tablespoon kosher salt

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1 teaspoon garlic powder

1 whole head (AKA bulb) of garlic, top cut off to expose cloves

2 cups low-sodium beef broth (or beef bone broth or 2 cups water + 1 tablespoon beef-flavored Better Than Bouillon)

Preheat the oven to 300°F. Pat

1 (3- to 4-pound) boneless beef chuck roast

dry then season it all over with

1 tablespoon kosher salt, 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper,

and

1 teaspoon garlic powder

. Place the beef fat-side-up (if there is a noticeably fattier side on your roast) in a Dutch oven.

Cut across the top of

a whole head of garlic

so that the tops of the individual cloves are exposed (but keep the head whole). Add

2 cups low-sodium beef broth

around the meat and set the garlic in the broth.

Cover and cook for 3 1/2 to 4 hours, until the meat is very tender and pulls apart easily with a fork. Start checking at 3 1/2 hours — if it doesn’t shred VERY easily with a fork, keep cooking!

Every oven is a little different and we’ll all be working with slightly different sizes of chuck roast, so if after even 4 hours yours still doesn’t shred easily, keep cooking for another 30 minutes and check again! I know it seems counterintuitive but the longer you cook chuck roast, the more tender it becomes. Continue until it’s fall-apart tender.

Remove the pot from the oven, uncover, and let it rest for 15 to 20 minutes. Use a slotted spoon to skim off any fat from the surface of the liquid.

Remove the head of garlic and (if/when it’s cool enough to handle), use a fork and/or your fingers to squeeze the garlic cloves into the Dutch oven. They will be really soft and squishy! Discard the garlic peel.

Use two forks to shred the beef into the remaining juices and garlic and toss to combine.

Use immediately or let cool then store for up to 4 days in an airtight container in the fridge.

NOTES:

Extra extra:

If you have extra time and energy, sear the beef — AKA, cook it in a hot skillet so the exterior gets crispy — before you roast it. Searing a big cut of beef helps lock the juices and tenderness in, while adding some nice texture and flavor to the outside. To do so, heat the Dutch oven over medium-high heat and warm 2 tablespoons avocado oil. Cook the beef on each side (4 sides total) for 4 to 5 minutes each, or until crusty. Alternatively, you can uncover the pot for the last 30 minutes of cooking to get a more browned, slightly crusty exterior on your beef. Neither is a must! It’ll be great either way.

How to adjust the timing for your chuck roast:

Everyone will be working with slightly different sized chuck roasts, some a little smaller, some a little bigger. You want to cook the beef for 1 hour per pound of meat, rounding up to the nearest half hour. So, you would do 3 hours for a 2 3/4- to 3-pound chuck roast, or 4 hours for a 4-pound roast.

Store it:

Once it has cooled (but within 2 hours of coming out of the oven), store the beef in an airtight container in the fridge and use it in one or multiple of the following recipes. You could also freeze some or all of it! Freeze portions of it in airtight zip-top bags or containers with some of the garlicky liquid to keep the meat juicy and flavorful. Thaw it in the fridge overnight then reheat it in a skillet or in the microwave until warm.

Subs:

This recipe’s written specifically for beef chuck roast, so no subs for that! If you want to simplify things, skip the roasted garlic and use an extra teaspoon of garlic powder when you’re seasoning the beef with salt and pepper. Beef stock, beef bone broth, a vegetable stock or broth, or water plus Better Than Bouillon will all work in place of beef broth.

pepperoncini nachos

Serves 4

Cook time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

2 cups shredded beef

1 cup store-bought thinly sliced pepperoncini peppers, plus a little of their brine

1 (12- to 16-ounce) bag of tortilla chips

8 ounces shredded Colby Cheese

8 ounces shredded white cheddar

1 cup sour cream

1 large avocado, diced

4 ounces feta cheese

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Warm

2 cups shredded beef

up (if it’s cold) and stir in

a

splash of pepperoncini brine

.

Put

a

layer of tortilla chips

(about 1/3 of the bag) on a large rimmed baking sheet (option to line it with parchment paper first to make clean up easier). Cover the chips with

1/3 of the beef, 1/3 of both cheeses

,

and

1/3 cup thinly sliced pepperoncinis

. Repeat to make two more layers.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, until the cheese is melted through. While it’s in the oven, stir together

1 cup sour cream,

a spoonful of pepperoncini brine, and a pinch of kosher salt

. Dice

1

avocado

.

Drizzle the nachos with about 1/3 of the sour cream pepperoncini sauce. Top with

4 ounces crumbled feta

and the diced avocado. Serve the rest of the sauce on the side for dipping.

coconut curry ramen bowl

Serves 2 to 4

Cook time: 15 minutes

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