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This Paleo, Whole30, and AIP pot roast recipe is delicious! It's a freezer meal prep recipe, but one that you can either make for dinner tonight OR throw the raw ingredients into a bag and freeze for later. It can be cooked in a slow cooker, Instant Pot, or in the oven.
I'm back this week with yet another AIP diet friendly freezer meal prep recipe – one that you can either make for dinner tonight OR throw the raw ingredients into a bag and freeze for later.
This one, an AIP pot roast recipe is also Paleo and Whole30-friendly and can be cooked in a slow cooker, Instant Pot, or in the oven.
In last week's post, I shared an AIP Thai Chicken Soup that you can easily throw into a bag and freeze, and that one has gotten rave reviews and many converts to this easy way of cooking.
I mean seriously, does it get much easier than throwing ingredients, that you haven't cooked mind you, into a bag and freezing? Then when you want the meal, thawing and throwing into a slow cooker?
Um, no, it does not – at least not with healthy-from-scratch cooking.
This Cherry Balsamic Pot Roast is similar – you take a freezer bag or freezer-safe container, put the ingredients in and freeze – without cooking a thing!! Bam, you've got a meal prepped for that super busy night or that night when you just can't even because of pain or exhaustion.
Table of contents
An AIP pot roast to feed your whole family – or just you
This Cherry Balsamic Paleo Pot Roast is super tasty, can be prepped in less than 10 minutes, and will feed a hungry family. My family absolutely loves this dish and requests it often.
HOWEVER, if you don't need or want to feed your whole family, you can freeze the leftovers too! I'd just freeze them in small portions, like 5 oz of meat in a bag, and then just thaw and reheat when you need it. Yet another great meal prep kind of thing – without even really meal prepping…
I love using the leftover frozen meat like this when I have some leftover veggies but no meat to complete a meal. I'll just remove the small, 5 oz bag from my freezer and either throw it in a pan on the stove to warm up or in the microwave and then I've got some protein for my meal.
Ingredients for this pot roast recipe
There aren't a lot of ingredients for this recipe, which makes it both easy to make and also (hopefully) easy to find the ingredients. See the recipe card below for exact measurements.
• Beef Chuck Roast – The main ingredient is beef chuck roast. Sometimes beef chuck roast can go on a pretty great sale, so instead of letting that sale pass by, grab a few extra roasts and prep this dish and freeze for later!
• Yellow Onion – This is to add some flavor to the dish. You can use a red onion if that's all you have as well
• Frozen Cherries – I use frozen pitted cherries because it makes this dish SO easy to make. However, if you have fresh cherries you can also use those as well – just make sure to remove the pits first! Also, if you're freezing this for later, keep the cherries frozen. No need to thaw them just to freeze them again.
• Balsamic Vinegar – This delicious vinegar gives both a sweetness and a tanginess to the dish and pairs with the cherries beautifully.
• Olive Oil – This just adds some flavor and fat to help the dish cook. You can omit this if you don't want to include it.
• Garlic Cloves, dried Thyme, and Sea Salt – All flavor elements that round this dish out nicely!
How to make this Paleo pot roast
More of a visual person? Watch the entire full-length video on how to make this on YouTube.
See the recipe card below to find out the exact instructions, but the basic gist is this:
• If you want to freeze this dish for later, just throw all of the ingredients into a freezer bag or freezer-safe container. When it comes time to serve it, thaw it overnight in the fridge
• If you want to make it for tonight, throw all of the ingredients into a slow cooker, Instant Pot, or oven-safe dish. If you frozen it, dump the contents of the bag into one of those cooker methods.
• Cook in either the slow cooker, Instant Pot, or oven.
That's it! Super easy peasy.
Many Sides to Serve With This Dish
I really love serving this dish over mashed cauliflower, but some other ideas:
- Mashed sweet potato (Paleo, Whole30, AIP)
- Mashed butternut squash (Paleo, Whole30, AIP)
- Mashed white potato (Paleo, Whole30)
- Mashed sweet potato + parsnip (Paleo, Whole30, AIP)
- with Roasted Brussels Sprouts – try this Brussels Sprouts with Apples (Paleo, Whole30, AIP)
- with Roasted Broccoli – try this Roasted Broccoli recipe (Paleo, Whole30, AIP)
- with Roasted Romanesco (cook just like in the roasted broccoli recipe above but serve with sliced black olives and a squeeze of lemon juice)
Other Easy AIP Freezer Recipes
5 Paleo & AIP Chicken Marinades
AIP & Paleo Freezer Meals – Save Time, Effort, and Money
More Helpful AIP & Paleo Resources in the Freebie Library
If you find this recipe helpful, you may really enjoy the resources in my Paleo & AIP Freebie Library! There's a “dump” freezer meal plan, a list of AIP-compliant breakfast toppings, and so much more. Plus, you'll get even more ideas sent to your inbox! Get the password here.
Cherry Balsamic Pot Roast Recipe (Paleo, Whole30, AIP)
If you make this pot roast I'd love to hear how it turned out! Either comment below or share a pic on Instagram and tag me @thrivingonpaleo!
Cherry Balsamic Pot Roast (Paleo, Whole30, AIP)
Ingredients
- 3 lbs Beef Chuck Roast (fat trimmed)
- 1 medium Yellow Onion (peeled and chopped)
- 2 cups frozen pitted Sweet Cherries (approx a 12 oz bag )
- 1/2 cup Balsamic Vinegar
- 3 tbsp Olive Oil
- 4 cloves Garlic (minced)
- 1 tsp Dried Thyme
- 1/2 tsp Sea Salt
Instructions
Directions for freezing:
- Put all of the ingredients into a 1-gallon freezer bag. Massage lightly with your hands to mix the ingredients. Push all the air out of the bag, seal, label and freeze.
Directions for serving:
To serve, thaw and do one of the following:
- OVEN:Preheat oven to 350 F. Pour the contents of the bag into a large baking dish or dutch oven. Cook for 3-4 hours, checking after an hour to see if the roast seems dry. If so, add some beef or chicken stock or water to the pot. Cook until fork tender.
- INSTANT POT:**Add 1/2 cup of water to the basin of your Instant Pot along with the ingredients. Cook for 60 minutes at high pressure on Manual in an Instant Pot. Let the pressure naturally release for 10 minutes when the cooking is done. (You can also cook this from frozen – cook for 80 minutes at high pressure and check to make sure it's done. If it's not, put the lid back on and cook at pressure for another 10-20 minutes)
- SLOW COOKER:Place in a slow cooker and cook for 6-8 hours on low.
Nutrition
This is wonderful! I love it!
Did I understand correctly that you can cook this from frozen in the instant pot? Does the cooking time need to be adjusted? The recipe looks great! I can’t wait to try it.
I am not a huge cherry fan…. Do you think this would work with blueberries?
That’s a great question – I see no reason why it wouldn’t though. The blueberries might get mushier as they’re a lot smaller, but the flavor sounds good.
Delicious! I love the twist on a classic pot roast. I ended up sauteing my onions and deglazing the pan prior to cooking in the instantpot.
I’m so glad you liked it!
Madison, did you saute and deglaze in the instant pot liner? Or use another pan?
I did it with the instantpot liner 🙂