Slow Cooker Brisket

My entire life my grandmother and mom made this amazing brisket, especially during the holidays. A few years ago I finally decided I would put on my big boy pants and try to make it myself. So let me just say that making brisket in the oven is a total pain. You have to take it out of the oven, baste it, add water, turn it, move the onions around... and then a mere 5-7 hours after you've begun it's finally ready. It is one high maintenance meal. Delicious, but who has the time for that kind of cooking commitment?

So I decided to try the brisket in the slow cooker. I'm thinking-- no basting, no flipping-- just let it stew on its own and at some point turn it off.


Prep time: 5 minutes
Cook time: About 10-11 hours of not having to touch it even once

Ingredients:

• 3-4 lb. (a little less than 2 kilos) beef brisket
• 1 jar Heinz (it must be Heinz) chili sauce OR 2 cups ketchup mixed with 2 tsp. brown sugar, 2 tsp. dried onion flakes, and a little garlic powder
  
• 2-3 yellow or brown onions sliced thick
  
• 1/2 tsp. salt

Technique:

1. On a cutting board, trim all visible fat from brisket- I do this was a cheap serrated knife.
2. Put 1/2 of the sliced onion in bottom of slow cooker.
3. Put brisket on top of onion, if too big fold edges up the sides or fold the whole thing in half. It is going to shrink in a big way.
4. Add about 1 cup of water to the crockpot.
5. Pour chili sauce or ketchup mixture over the whole thing, use the back of a spoon to coat top of brisket with sauce.
6. Put remaining onions on top of brisket.
7. Turn slow cooker on low and cook 8-11 hours, until meat can easily have a fork stuck into the middle of it.

Serving it up:

• After it cools about 30 minutes to an hour, remove brisket from crock pot and slice with a large serrated/ or bread knife against the grain-- this means if the brisket is shredding do not cut it the same way the beef is shredding-- cut across the shredding, not with the shredding. Ladle some sauce with onions over sliced meat on each plate.
• Excellent served with sweet potatoes or mashed potatoes, and green beans.
  
• Store meat in separate container from sauce/onions.
• If you have a ton of sauce (like I did), freeze a small container of it to use to bake chicken in at some point.

This is how much I ended up with-- when you make this in a slow cooker it makes a ton of gravy.


To give you an idea of scale...that meat container is about 8 inches high.