Add This Bold Ingredient To Your Pot Roast For A Brighter Flavor

Great pot roast hits great notes of salt, fat, and umami, but David Leite, food writer and founder of Leite's Culinaria, takes inspiration from North Africa for a surprising pot roast upgrade. "Adding dried fruit to a pot roast is a great and inexpensive way to add a complex sweetness and a subtle, often tangy, acidity," he says.

"Instead of a one-note umami-forward gravy, you get a sauce with high (acid) notes and bass (caramel-y) notes, where the fruit's concentrated sugars complement the deep, meaty flavor," says Leite. "You see this a lot in North African tagines and classic European braises." Whether sun-dried or made in an air fryer, drying fruits concentrates their sugars and turn them into perfect, all natural sweeteners. Just like barbecue or stir-fries thickened with sugar, combining protein with sugar develops their flavors in incredible ways, emphasizing the meatiness while expanding the flavor profile into something that tastes professionally made.

For larger fruits like apricots or figs, Leite prefers to halve them, guaranteeing they have the surface area required to release their flavors. For smaller varieties like raisins, feel free to toss them in whole. Either way, dried fruits tend to grow mushy when rehydrated, so he recommends adding them halfway through the cook time to preserve their textures. Every dried fruit has its advantages in a pot roast, but knowing how to use them is vital for the best possible dish.

Bold ingredients that upgrade your pot roast come with a risk: they can potentially overpower your other flavors. Periodically checking the flavor of your pot roast and adding more fruit, as needed, is the best way to avoid this mistake everyone makes and keep your meat and gravy as the stars of the show.

If you're looking for something more subtle, David Leite recommends figs, prunes, or apricots. Prunes are Leite's top choice for their almost smoky sweetness and natural thickening properties when simmered. Apricots are a tried and true choice of chefs whipping up tagine in Morocco thanks to their balance of sweet and tangy. If you're looking for texture, Leite says that fig seeds distribute through a gravy marvelously but the figs themselves also develop a jammy texture that is a nice contrast to tender beef.

If you're a big believer in tang and are tired of citrus, Leite recommends cherries and cranberries, albeit with a warning. "Use these...but sparingly. They can add a fantastic, sharp tartness that contrasts nicely with the beef." Both cherries and cranberries have citric acid which counteract the natural sweetening drying produces, so while they're incredible firecrackers of flavor that easily cut through heavy beef fat, it's easy to use too much. Should you use these, steer clear of any other acidic ingredients like vinegars.