Slow Cooker Shredded Beef (multi-purpose!)
“A staple in our house! I’ve done both the slow cooker and instant pot versions and it’s fantastic every time!” – Katie
This easy shredded beef is perfect for simply prepping shredded beef for tacos, hashes, and more! It’s made with minimal ingredients in the slow cooker or Instant Pot.
Prepping proteins can take a lot of effort at times! Perfectly cooking a steak, or making a juicy chicken, can be a little bit more labor-intensive than I’m willing to do some days. Sometimes you just need a shortcut and a quick hack to have healthy protein on hand that you can transform for any kind of dish.
This shredded beef is the perfect multi-use protein that takes almost no effort to make! I love using it for tacos, enchiladas, hashes, or just eating on it’s own with a simple side.
Table of contents
- Why you’ll love this Shredded Beef Recipe
- Recipe Ingredients
- Susbsititons and Modifications
- How to make Shredded Beef in the Slow Cooker
- How to modify Shredded Beef for the Instant Pot
- Recipe FAQS
- How do you make this recipe into a freezer meal?
- How to serve shredded beef
- More Slow Cooked Beef Recipes to Try
Why you’ll love this Shredded Beef Recipe
- Multi-purpose! You can use this shredded beef in so many different recipes! Tacos, sandwiches, or even just a bowl with rice, lettuce, and apple cider vinegar pickled onions. It’s a blank canvas that you can switch up the seasonings for depending on what you want to serve it with—the perfect easy staple recipe to add to your rotation.
- Set it and forget it. I love a slow cooker meal like my Slow Cooker Greek Chicken, which leaves me with tons of protein for minimal effort. Let the slow cooker (or instant pot) do most of the work.
Recipe Ingredients
- Chuck Roast. See above for the best cut!
- Beef broth. You definitely want to use broth rather than something like water. It adds a ton more flavor and keeps the beef juicy.
- Salt, pepper, bay leaves, garlic, and onion powder. Since this is a multi-purpose beef, the seasonings are minimal. However, if you know you’ll be using this beef for something specific, feel free to mix up the seasonings to fit the recipe better.
Susbsititons and Modifications
This recipe is a canvas, so you can easily add specific seasonings to fit a certain recipe. For example, I used this recipe for tacos and added lime juice, cilantro, and oregano to the mix. But if you’re looking to switch up the flavor profile, here are some ideas…
- Italian seasoning: Balsamic vinegar, and Italian seasonings.
- Breakfast hash seasoning: rosemary, thyme and sage.
How to make Shredded Beef in the Slow Cooker
- Slice the chuck roast and sear. Heat the oil in a large pan over medium heat and lightly sear the chuck roast for 1-2 minutes on each side until lightly browned.
- Add the chuck roast pieces to the base of the slow cooker, and add the broth and apple cider vinegar—season with garlic cloves, onion powder, and top with bay leaves.
- Cover the slow cooker and cook on low for 8 hours or until the beef easily shreds.
How to modify Shredded Beef for the Instant Pot
- Slice and sear the beef. Add the remainder of the ingredients to the Instant Pot. Place the lid on the Instant Pot with the pressure valve sealed. Hit “Manual” and cook on high pressure for 90 minutes.
- Allow the Instant Pot to come to pressure, cook, and let the pressure release naturally. Once the pressure is released, remove the lid from the Instant Pot.
- Remove the bay leaves and carefully shred the meat with two forks.
Recipe FAQS
You don’t need to do this step, however, it does help develop extra flavor.
The best way to reheat the shredded beef is to spoon some of the cooking liquid over top and reheat in a pan for 3-4 minutes or low, or in the oven at 350 F for a few minutes.
This recipe is super moist, so you won’t have a problem with it being dry right out of the slow cooker!
However, when you’re reheating it and need to keep it moist, simply reserve some of the cooking liquid and spoon it over the beef to keep it from drying out.
– Chuck roast. Slicing up a chuck roast is a great option to make shredded beef!
– Stew meat. I also like to use stew meat for this recipe as it’s already sliced up, and it nice and tender.
How do you make this recipe into a freezer meal?
- Add all of the ingredients to a freezer-safe bag and freeze flat for 2-3 months.
- Fully defrost when you’re ready to cook it. You can skip the browning and add the meat directly to the slow cooker and cook as directed.
How to serve shredded beef
- Hashes. Serve over crispy sweet potatoes and other veggies of your choice
- Sandwiches. You can add BBQ sauce to make a BBQ beef sandwich!
- Beef Enchiladas. Stay tuned for an upcoming enchilada recipe with this beef!
- Shredded Beef bowls with a side. Serve it with roasted veggies of your choice for a simple meal.
- Shredded Beef Tacos! Add some cilantro and lime juice and you’ve got some easy taco meat to pair with avocado and red onion.
More Slow Cooked Beef Recipes to Try
The Easiest Multi-Purpose Slow Cooker Shredded Beef
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Ingredients
- 2 lbs chuck roast, boneless
- 2 tbsp avocado oil
- 1 tsp sea salt
- ⅓ tsp black pepper, omit for AIP
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tsp onion powder
- 2 bay leaves
- 1 cup beef broth
- 1 tsp apple cider vinegar, sub juice of one lime if desired
Instructions
- Slice the chuck roast into large cubes and season on all sides with salt and pepper.
- Heat the oil in a large pan over medium heat and lightly sear the chuck roast for 1-2 minutes on each side until lightly browned.
- Add the chuck roast pieces of the base of the slow cooker and add the broth and apple cider vinegar. Season with garlic cloves, onion powder, and top with bay leaves.
- Cover the slow cooker and cook on low for 8 hours or until the beef easily shreds.
- Use the beef to serve over rice, with tacos, or any other meal where you need shredded beef!
Notes
- Slice the chuck roast into large cubes and season on all sides with salt and pepper. Add the avocado oil to the instant pot and set to saute. Add the beef and season with salt and pepper and sear for 1-2 minutes on each side to very lightly brown. Hit cancel on the instant pot.
- Add the remainder of the ingredients to the instant pot. Place the lid on the instant pot with the pressure valve sealed. Hit “Manual” and cook on high pressure for 90 minutes.
- Allow the instant pot to come to pressure, cook, and let the pressure release naturally. Once the pressure is released, remove the lid from the instant pot. Remove the bay leaves and carefully shred the meat with two forks.
- Add all of the ingredients to a freezer-safe bag and freeze flat for 2-3 months. Fully defrost when you’re ready to cook it. You can skip the browning and add the meat directly to the slow cooker.
Photos by Eat Love Eats.
This recipe is super easy and delicious. The flavor profile lends itself to be used in versatile recipes. I am about to start my AIP journey to try to see what is making me get hives for days sometimes weeks at a time. I am so thankful to have found your website and grateful to you for sharing your recipes. I’m making a stockpile of AIP complaint foods to ensure success. Again thank you for taking time to write out all these wonderful recipes.
Thank you so much!! Hope you find many delicious AIP recipes to make here!
A staple in our house! I’ve done both the slow cooker and instant pot versions and it’s fantastic every time! Our fav is to make cheese steak bowls with this on top of rice, onions & peppers with a cashew cheese sauce. Delicious!
Great recipe, loved the fact you included an instant pot version. Very simple, straight forward, and delicious! Served over rice with a side of steamed vegetables, this is going to become a regular meal for me.
Thank you!
Perfect easy shredded beef recipe. I followed the instructions exactly for the instant pot and the beef turned out amazing. Will be using it to make the beef enchiladas!thanks.
yay, so glad you enjoyed the recipe!!
I’m needing to atleast double this to feed a crowd. I’ll be using your instant pot version, should all ingredients be doubled?
Yes, double all ingredients and should work!
Perfect easy shredded beef recipe. I followed the instructions exactly for the instant pot and the beef turned out amazing. Will be using it to make the beef enchiladas!
What do you serve this with? Cauliflower rice?
There are a few ideas listed here in the blog post 🙂
How big should the chunks be?
They can be bigger chunks, or you can even use stew meat.
I am confused…the first part of your post says cook in instapot for 60 min. ; then later on it says 90 min. which is correct. 30 minutes off would be significant in any recipe, thanks for your reply (this sounds awesome)
It’s 90… that’s a typo.. thanks!