One thing I’ve been enjoying lately is finding a great, inexpensive cut of meat and slowly cooking it to render out the fat and leave it fall-apart-fork-tender. Not only do I like it for those reasons, but it makes the next couple weeks of clean eating super easy! For breakfast, lunch, or dinner I have a delicious protein I’m excited about eating that is extremely versatile.
I first tried slow-cooking with beef and then later with pork. Both have been SO good they’re worth sharing with you! First up: the beef.
Talk about versatile. I made this just before hosting a friend for the weekend. We transformed it for breakfast each day. We heated the brisket with veggies and fresh fruit one day, we had it with a greens and egg scramble another day, and then alongside Clean Green Juice another day.
Later that week the beef transformed itself into many lunches and dinners. For lunch I headed to work several days with some Beef Brisket, a bit of Mediterranean Sweet Potato Salad and some Italian Roasted Mushroom Salad. Another day I made a salad of mixed greens topped with brisket, and I used Italian Roasted Mushroom Salad and its juices as my veggie add-ins and salad dressing. For dinner another night I made a paleo BBQ sauce and we had Pulled BBQ Beef. Another night it was tossed into an Asian stir fry. Delicious. I’m NOT usually one for leftovers, but I tell you, having a delicious protein on-hand, ready-to-eat has been so darn handy.
I got this recipe from watching the good ol’ Food Network. I tweaked the original to stay in line with clean eating, but essentially used their method and recipe. I will be making this recipe again in the future… so should you!
I wasn’t prepared for how large this roast was. I was planning to use the roasting pan I have, but it turned out to be too small. So I ended up cutting my roast in half, marinating it in two 1-gallon bags, and roasting it at the same time in two different pots. The next time when I did something similar with a pork roast, I wised-up and got a giant disposable roasting tin at the grocery (as suggested in the original recipe). No harm done this time, it still worked beautifully.
Start by making the marinade. Add the beef broth….
…4 large or 5 small cloves of chopped garlic…
…juice of two lemons (not pictured), and 1 1/2 cups coconut aminos. I didn’t have enough coconut aminos so I actually did part aminos part low-sodium tamari.
*Side note: I still really want to make Melissa Joulwan’s (of The Clothes Make the Girl) Substitute for Soy Sauce & Coconut Aminos. That would work here beautifully!
Once you add the beef, marinate it for 24-48 hours in the refrigerator (fat side up).
When you’re ready to cook the meat, transfer it to a pot, marinade and all. Cover tightly, and cook at 300 degrees F for 40 minutes per pound of beef. After about 5 hours and 20 minutes of cooking mine looked like this:
Mouth watering yet? I transferred the beef to a cutting board and sliced off and discarded the remaining top layer of fat.
While the beef rested a minute, I skimmed the fat off the top of the pan juices with a large spoon. Next, I shredded the beef with a fork…
…and then placed the shredded beef back in the pan with its juices. I stored it in the pan, covered for several days in the fridge before freezing the rest.
Make your next few weeks easy by keeping tasty, cooked protein in the fridge that’s great as is AND transformed into many different meals.
- 6-10 pounds of beef brisket (I used an 8 lb. brisket)
- (2) 14 oz. cans low-sodium beef broth
- 1½ cups coconut aminos (or low-sodium Tamari which is wheat-free soy sauce)
- 4 cloves garlic, chopped
- 2 lemons, juiced
- 2 tablespoons Liquid Smoke
- Combine broth, aminos, garlic, lemon and liquid smoke in 2-gallon ziplock bag or large roasting pan with a lid.
- Add in the beef and marinate it fat side up in the refrigerator for 24-48 hours.
- Heat your oven to 300 F. If not in a roasting pan already, transfer the meat and marinade into a roasting pan (fat side up). Cover tightly with a lid and cook for 40 minutes per pound. (Mine took about 5 hours and 20 minutes.)
- After cooked, remove meat from pan and juices and slice off remaining layer of fat from the top; discard. Using a fork, shred the meat.
- In the roasting pan, remove the fat from the marinade by skimming the surface with a large spoon.
- Return shredded meat to the pan juices and store in the fridge for a few days or store individual portions in the freezer for easy reheating later.
My whole family loves this recipe, even my pickiest child. I love the flavor after marinating the beef for 2 days in the fridge before cooking. I’m not usually a big beef fan, but this recipe makes me excited for beef! I usually halve the recipe when it’s just my family of four – a 3lb cut is perfect for dinner plus a little bit for leftovers, and keep the recipe at full size when we have company.
When you can prepare one dish the whole family likes, that’s a win! Happy to hear it easily worked with a smaller cut of meat when you didn’t want to make a ton.