I would never start out lying to you all. I am not even a little Irish (that I know of), and I didn’t eat my first piece of corned beef until maybe 2013-ish – so I was about 23 years old. Again, being honest, I didn’t love it. Probably because it was the first time I ever ate it, and I cooked it myself not really knowing even what it was. My husband is the one that wants Traditional Corned Beef and Cabbage once a year on St. Paddy’s day.

So naturally I did what everyone does when they want to try something new, I scoured Pinterest for recipes. I ended up taking the easy way out, and dumped my carrots, and potatoes, and brisket into the crockpot with some water and the pickling spices and forgot it for 8-ish hours. There was nothing wrong with it, but I wasn’t loving it- if you know what I mean. But, my husband (boyfriend at the time ‘awwwwww’), loved it!

However, if I am going to commit to cooking a meal every single year, I want to love it too. So I made multiple minor tweaks in order to change the dish from something my husband loved, to something I would truly enjoy as well. Most importantly, I wanted to pack it with beefy flavor and the favorite drink of the Irish- BEER! In addition to that, I don’t know about you, but I’m not into crockpot boiled potatoes, so I have pulled those out of the slow cooker equation and roasted them to a crispy goodness.

Ok so let’s get started, my “I don’t know if this is traditional or not” Corned Beef and Roasted Potatoes!

The Process:

Get out your slow cooker! I used a 6 quart, because I have a larger corned beef brisket.

Rough chop a large white onion and place in the slow cooker, along with 1 pound of carrots. I used baby carrots, so I didn’t have peel or cut them.

Take your corned beef brisket point, (yes point, we want it to be shred worthy), and tenderize it.

Tenderizing the brisket is totally optional. I like to tenderize any meat that I put in the crockpot, just to make sure it’s the most tender it can be. But whether you have a mallet style tenderizer or a prong/knife style like I do, it doesn’t matter they will both do the job.

Place the brisket on top of the carrots and onion, along with the pickling packet (that came with the corned beef) and salt/pepper. Then, pour the beer over it. I used Smithwicks Irish Ale, but any lager or ale would be great too! Next, add in the Au Jus. This is where the flavor power is, people! The rich beefy flavor of Au Jus is what you want your brisket in all day.

Lastly, you will add either beef broth or water until the brisket is almost covered. The liquid should almost cover the brisket, but not completely. So depending on how big your brisket is and how big your slow cooker is, it could be anywhere from 1-2 cups of additional liquid.

Set on low and cook for 9 hours.

Remove from the slow cooker and shred. Enjoy with your favorite Irish side dishes or use in a Reuben Sandwich!

Recipe: