Born In The '90s, This Simple Pot Roast Became A Slow-Cooker Internet Favorite

It should come as no surprise that great dishes can have humble or unlikely origins — the world's great peasant cuisines stand as proof of that — and we at Tasting Table are firm believers that you do not need to be a highly trained chef to innovate in the kitchen. Instead, you simply need a passion for good food, a sense of knowing what works well together, and a willingness to try new things. All of these factors combined to create the Mississippi pot roast, a slow-cooker dish born in the '90s that would go on to become one of the first viral recipes of the burgeoning internet age. 

As the name would suggest, the Mississippi pot roast originated in Ripley, Mississippi, when resident Robin Chapman attempted to modify her aunt's pot roast recipe to meet her children's taste preferences. She combined a chuck roast, a stick of butter, a jar of pickled pepperoncini, ranch seasoning, and au jus mix into her reliable slow cooker to create a milder version. After a few hours in the slow cooker, the result was a revelation. 

As with so many on-the-fly culinary innovations, Robin Chapman inadvertently created something new. Chapman's version of the roast proved a hit with her family and friends, including one who shared the recipe in a church cookbook. From there, the recipe spread organically, aided by the power of the internet, where it attracted acclaim for its simplicity, ease, and sheer deliciousness. The recipe would eventually be pinned on Pinterest over a million times, and The New York Times would later dub it "the roast that owns the internet."

As you will find in our recipe for a Mississippi pot roast, it is neither a labor-intensive dish, nor one that requires a great many ingredients — all you need is a good chuck roast (or a rump roast, if need be), a few packets of ranch dressing seasoning and dry onion soup mix, some unsalted butter, and a jar of pepperoncini peppers (making sure to reserve the pepperoncini juice), plus salt and pepper. Like Robin Chapman, you can feel free to play with the seasonings and dry mixes. Simply add all of the above to your crockpot, and cook it low and slow for several hours, allowing the beef to tenderize until it is falling apart — its savory taste combining with the richness of the butter, the flavor-boosting dry mixes, the spiciness of the peppers, and the subtle, vinegary bite of the pickled pepper juice. The result is comfort food par excellence.

The popularity of Mississippi pot roast was not merely a '90s phenomenon, and it continues to win new fans to this day. "Y'all weren't lying," wrote one satisfied home chef in a thread on Reddit's r/slowcooking. "Mississippi pot roast is the best roast I've ever made." Another Redditor raved, "Tell me why I always thought this was just a random niche recipe from a deep pocket of the internet that my father used to constantly make ... I'm so happy it's gained some traction, it's truly the best!!"

Should you be an amateur but adventurous home cook, take heart — if you have a recipe that may have started out as someone else's, but has now been tweaked, modified, and improved until it is indisputably yours, it may appeal to more than just your friends and family. Who knows? Maybe you're sitting on the next Mississippi pot roast.