I am late to the game on the Mississippi Roast recipe. But I’m so thankful I found it. My life is profoundly better having this in my belly.

Mississippi Roast was created by a Southern gal named Robin Chapman, who has made it for family and friends for years. It was published in a local Mississippi church cookbook some years ago, but it reached viral popularity on Pinterest, having been pinned more than 1 million times. It’s been raved about on blogs and foodie websites and even The New York Times. The recipe involves just a few ingredients, but ingredients you would never think would go together: beef, dry packets of au jus gravy and ranch dressing, butter and pepperoncinis. It’s been heralded as a delicious, albeit unexpected, recipe for roast.

It seemed like the perfect thing to make for a Sunday dinner, plus I knew I’d have some leftovers for sandwiches. But last Sunday, E and I were so exhausted — we had a ridiculously fun weekend at a friend’s wedding but our bodies were aching from dancing— that we wanted something casual for dinner.  I decided to skip the formal Sunday roast dinner and go for Mississippi roast sliders.

When E and I were at the grocery store, he was shocked to see me throw packets of processed gravy and Ranch dressing into the basket. We’re hugely big on making our own condiments when necessary. “Trust me, I have big plans for this,” I told him.

Now, the recipe is designed for slow cooking, but my friend Lindsay had posted the recipe on her Facebook wall a few days prior and said she cooked her own Mississippi roast in her Dutch oven in a few hours. I got a late start on dinner, so I needed to use the oven method because I didn’t have six hours to spare. Amazingly, this recipe only takes 5 minutes to prepare, and I had the roast cooking in my Le Creuset in less time than it took to unload the groceries from the store. (You can sear the meat in the pot before you add the ingredients and place it in the oven, but I was so damn late starting dinner that I skipped that part and rushed to get this in the oven as fast as possible.)

Three hours later, I had a salivating husband drooling over a pot of delicious, tangy meat. The roast was surprisingly flavorful, an umami derived from a slight vinegary flavor from the Ranch dressing and savoriness from the meat, and those pepperoncinis were the perfect sweet-spicy accompaniment. For extra tang, I added a bit more juice from the jar of the pepperoncinis to the gravy before adding the shredded beef back into the pot.

I agree with the rest of the Internet when I say this recipe is the bomb-diggity. You can make this for Sunday dinner or for group gatherings. The next time we have guests over, I’ll plan far enough ahead so I can cook this in my Crock-Pot, so I can have that tangy, savory smell wafting through my house for hours before dinner.

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