What Is The Mississippi Roast And Why Is It So Popular?

The great state of Mississippi has given the world many things for which we are extremely thankful —Elvis Presley, William Faulkner, Mississippi Mud Pie, and Barq's Root Beer, to name just a few. If the legion of social media fans is any indication, then it is time we added another item to that list: Mississippi Roast, which has been pinned over 1 million times on Pinterest.

How Mississippi Roast Became An Internet Sensation

Many popular recipes, such as the aforementioned Mississippi Mud Pie, have a (pardon the pun) muddy past. No one is quite sure of the origin of the recipe, even though variations appear in numerous spiral-bound community cookbooks across the South. The origin of the Mississippi Pot Roast, however, can be traced straight back to Ripley, Mississippi, resident Robin Chapman, who adapted a recipe given to her in the 1990s. In an effort to make her aunt's pot roast recipe less spicy and more palatable to her children, Robin changed it up a bit, thus creating a brand-new recipe (because that is how new recipes come about, right?)

Her family loved the new variation, so Robin put it in her regular rotation. She later shared the recipe, simply dubbed the roast, with her life-long friend Karen Farese, who eventually contributed the recipe to a cookbook compiled by her church, the Beech Hill Church of Christ. At this point, the recipe was known simply as roast beef.

As the saying goes, the rest is history. As time went on people found the recipe in the cookbook and discovered how delicious and easy the roast is; home cooks shared the recipe with friends and bloggers posted it, pinned it, and renamed it Mississippi Pot Roast. The recipe eventually became so popular that the New York Times declared it as "the roast that owns the internet."

What Is In Mississippi Roast?

This popular slow-cooker supper recipe has only five ingredients (including the beef). Give it a try. The original version of the roast is below, but you can also try one of our favorite Mississippi pot roast recipes, Julie Yoste's Mississippi Roast.

Ingredients

1. (3-4 pound) roast, your choice of cut
2. One stick butter
3. 1 package au jus gravy mix
4. 1 package Hidden Valley Ranch dressing mix (dry)
5. Pepperoncini peppers, number to your liking, and a little juice

Cooking Directions

1. Sometimes we use chuck, sometimes sirloin tip, sometimes rump.
2. Sometimes we sear it. Sometimes we don't.
3. Put roast in slow cooker. Add other ingredients. Salt and pepper if you like and cook until tender.

Recipe courtesy Robin Chapman.

As with any recipe, each time someone shares it they usually make tweaks to the original—adding or changing an ingredient to suit their own taste, making homemade gravy or ranch dressing instead of using the powdered version. The same has happened with the Mississippi Roast; if you Google it you will find different variations. Word to the wise—next time you tweak a recipe and share it, you could be on the way to creating the next internet sensation.