Those who know me, know that I’m a sucker for a few things:

A “new” trendy diet
I mean, most of them aren’t new by any stretch… so maybe let’s call them repackaged diets. But as long as it’s trendy and getting press, I’m gonna juice whatever refuse I can find on my back patio for the sake of checking some dumb box. I mean, whether it’s eating only orange foods (Ranch is okay as long as it’s stuck to a carrot, right?), shunning meat (just kidding – I’d never), “eating” things only if they can be sucked through a straw, or eating only things that were available before the creation of spoken language… I’ll give anything a try once. Just for the heck of it.

Scarves
I live in Katy, Texas, where the “need” for scarves is maybe 10 out of 365 days in a “cold” year. I have more than 10 scarves.

Modern technology (aka BUY ALL OF THE GADGETS!!)
And that’s where these sandwiches come in. My friend Brandi bought an Instant Pot – it’s an electric pressure cooker that does a bunch of other things, too. The very next day, I showed up on her doorstep with a 4lb pork roast, a Dr Pepper, a bottle of Gatlin’s barbecue sauce, and a package of Hawaiian rolls.

We seared the roast right in the pot (a dream of mine!), set it to Pressure for 90 minutes, and by the time we had made a dent in the cheese plate and a couple of bottles of wine, it was dinner time. Dinner that tasted like it had cooked for 8-10 hours. I was sold. Sooooo sold. Like, ordered-one-for-myself-sitting-right-there-on-her-couch-eating-a-pulled-pork-slider, sold.

And now that my shiny new pressure cooker is here, I decided to give it an inaugural spin on one of my (and your) all-time favorite slow cooker recipes: French Dip Sandwiches.

In the slow cooker, we’re talking 6 hours minimum. In the Instant Pot? 10 minutes of prep, 40 minutes of cooking at pressure, 15-20 minutes of resting, and another 10-15 minutes to shred the meat and build sandwiches.

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Pressure Cooker French Dip Sandwiches au Jus

Pressure-cooked French Dip Sandwiches au Jus - the same slow-cooker tenderness in a fraction of the time.

Ingredients

• 4 lb boneless chuck roast
• Salt
• Pepper
• 1 Tbsp oil
• 1/2 medium yellow onion, sliced
• 3/4 cup beef or chicken stock (chicken is usually all I ever have in the freezer)
• 2 Tbsp coconut aminos or soy sauce
• 1 tsp fish sauce (optional, but I'm obsessed)
• 2 Tbsp water
• 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 1 Tbsp creole (or other spicy brown) mustard
• 2 cloves garlic, smashed
• 8 sandwich rolls, split
• 8 slices of cheese

Instructions

1. Cut the roast in half and liberally salt and pepper the top and bottom sides.
2. Set the pot to Saute and heat 1 Tbsp oil.
3. Sear 1 piece of roast at a time, ~3 minutes on each side. Move to a plate when done.
4. Add the sliced onions and the garlic and cook until softened.
5. Turn the pot off.
6. Add the two halves of the roast on top of the onions.
7. Stir together the stock, soy sauce, fish sauce, water, Worcestershire sauce, and creole mustard.
8. Pour over the roast, lock the lid in place, and set the vent to Seal (not Vent).
9. Set the pot to High Pressure for 45 minutes.
10. After the pot beeps to let you know the cooking cycle is done, it will take another 15-20 minutes to "naturally" release the pressure (the cylinder next to the vent will drop, indicating that it is done).
11. Shred the meat and build the sandwiches.
12. Strain the liquid and discard as much of the fat as possible (I have a "gravy defatter" that works pretty well - leftovers are even easier because the fat will solidify on the top and you can just scoop it off the next day).
13. Serve a small bowl of the drippings on the side of your sandwiches.

Notes

Yields: 8 servings

Source: The Brewer and The Baker

Estimated time: 1 hour 20 minutes