Slow Cooker Topside Roast Beef
This Post Contains Affiliate Links. Click Here To Read Our Full Disclosure.
Slow Cooker Roast Beef. How to cook a delicious topside roast beef in the slow cooker, including a healthy beef gravy. This slow cooker beef joint is incredibly tender and flavoursome and perfect for a slow cooker Sunday roast.

But I have something even better than our slow cooker beef joint for you to check out first.
It is our slow cooker ecookbook. It includes all our popular British slow cooker recipes and fantastic for variety with cooking with the Crockpot. Or browse our site as we have plenty of slow cooker recipes that are easy to recreate at home and we have been showing people how to use the slow cooker since 2011.
Slow Cooker Roast Beef
I grew up in Yorkshire, England and there were many occasions when roast beef and Yorkshire puddings with gravy was on the Sunday dinner menu.
I waitressed throughout the summer at restaurants that served roast beef and it was one of the perks of the job to get the leftover beef that was not eaten from the carvery when the customers had left.
You usually loaded leftover roast beef into sandwiches and then sat down for a rest with your roast beef sandwich and usually a few of the super-sized Yorkshire puddings on the side. Because raised in Yorkshire means that you can not enjoy roast beef without them.
Dominic also got to enjoy the roast beef leftovers too. But he wasn’t a waiter, he was the chef that was making the beef joint that ended up on the carvery.
Though where he worked, they would do a rib of beef joint, a turkey crown, rolled pork shoulder and usually a gammon. And his story was usually that only 1 in 5 times would you get the best of the bunch, (the beef joint) because that was always the true favourite.
We never worked in the same place. But we lived in a town with about 40 different places that sold roast dinners.
So, when I mentioned to Dominic that one of my friends loves to make roast beef in the slow cooker, he was excited as me to put his trusted roast beef recipe to the test.

Best Cut Of Beef For Slow Cooker?
My true favourite cut of beef for the slow cooker is topside. Topside is one of those amazing cuts that cooks well in the oven and becomes even more tender when you slow cook it.
When you slow cook topside it tastes as good as fillet or a rib tastes in the oven.
You can also do silverside too in the slow cooker. Which I will use if I get a deal on some silverside.
If you are American and reading this and wondering what on earth slow cooker topside is, or slow cooker silverside, then your equivalent would be slow cooker top round roast.
I also suggest avoiding chuck roast or brisket because it breaks up too much when you go to slice it.
Cooking Silverside In Slow Cooker
If you have silverside into of topside and want to cook silverside in the slow cooker, you probably are wondering what the notable differences are.
Well Silverside is much leaner that topside and both are known for being cheap for Sunday roast dinners.
If you are following a diet and want to lose weight then it would be recommended that you opt for silverside because of how much leaner it is and how little fat it contains.
Comparing silverside and topside roast beef joints, is a but like comparing chicken breast with chicken thighs. Chicken breast is leaner and chicken thighs are more flavoursome. And that with both you could use similar recipes and similar cook times.
So, if you have a silverside and want to cook it in the slow cooker, note that you can follow our slow cooker topside recipe and get the same results.

Slow Cooker Roast Dinner
I am sure you are wondering if you can achieve a full slow cooker roast dinner and go beyond just a slow cooker beef joint.
Well in the Milner’s we did exactly that and focused on ingredients we already had in to make a meal out of it.
- Air Fryer Yorkshire Pudding – Its always a great idea to have some spare Yorkshire puddings in the freezer, then you can load them into the air fryer to serve with your roast beef.
- Air Fryer Sweet Potato Cubes – An alternative to roast potatoes when you want a lower carb version. Or you can follow one of our other air fryer roast potatoes recipes. So easy for prepping and you can air fry with the Yorkshire puddings to speed yourself up.
- Instant Pot Frozen Vegetables – We used a medley of carrots and peas. Because let’s face it, British vegetables are not the same without the carrots and peas combo. You could do any frozen vegetables in the instant pot.
Then you have roast beef, Yorkshire puddings, roast sweet potatoes, peas and carrots, to make up a yummy slow cooker Sunday dinner. I love doing it like this because your kitchen gadgets are doing the hard work, so you don’t have to.
Slow Cooked Roast Beef & Gravy
Hang on a minute, you are probably wondering that your slow cooker roast dinner is missing the gravy?
Well, we have gravy too, but our gravy is a little different to the average gravy using Bisto or other gravy granules.
Instead, what we do is add in vegetables to cook with the beef roast in the slow cooker. Such as carrots, onion, and celery. Then the beef juices will drip onto these vegetables and create a fantastic stock for a beef gravy.
Then once the roast beef is cooked you blend the stock and you have a healthy beef gravy that is free of corn flour, gravy granules etc.
How To Cook Beef Joint In Slow Cooker?

Cooking a beef roasting joint in slow cooker is one of my true favourite roast Sunday dinner recipes and it’s so easy:
- Brown the topside in the slow cooker.
- Add in vegetables and place the topside on top.
- Slow cook.
- Blend the slow cooker vegetables into a beef gravy.
- Serve with Yorkshire puddings, roast potatoes and vegetables.
There is a little bit more to slow cooker roast beef, but that is the basics.
How Long To Cook Beef Joint In Slow Cooker?
The recommended cook time for a slow cooker beef joint is 4 hours on high. However if you want a medium or a medium rare, its recommended to reduce the cook time down to an hour and cook for 3 hours.
More Roast Beef Dinner Ideas
In the Milner house we love to cook roast beef using our kitchen gadgets. Here are a few other roast beef recipes to try next:
- Air Fryer Pot Roast
- Air Fryer Roast Beef
- Instant Pot Beef Roast
- Instant Pot Frozen Roast Beef + Gravy
Listen To Slow Cooker Topside Beef

Want to learn more about our Podcast? Then click here and you can browse through past episodes and subscribe to the Magic With Gadgets Podcast.
What To Do With Leftover Roast Beef?
If your family hasn’t eaten all the roast beef, then I recommend you check out our roast beef leftovers post, which is full of ideas for you to check out.

Slow Cooker Topside Roast Beef
Ingredients
Kitchen Gadgets:
Slow Cooker Topside Beef Ingredients:
- 1.2 Kg Roast Beef Topside
- 1 Medium Onion
- 4 Medium Carrots
- 3 Celery Sticks
- 250 ml Beef Stock
- 1 Tsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 2 Tsp Thyme
- Salt & Pepper
- Air Fryer Yorkshire Puddings optional
- Instant Pot Frozen Vegetables optional
- Air Fryer Sweet Potato Cubes optional
Instructions
- Peel and dice your celery, carrots, and onion.
- Place the onion, salt, pepper, thyme, and olive oil in your slow cooker and brown your topside on both sides and top and bottom until you have a wonderful brown colour on your topside.
- Remove the topside from the slow cooker and add in carrots, celery, and stock. Stir.
- Add the topside over the vegetables and place the lid on your slow cooker. Cook for four hours on high and then allow to cool for a further hour in the slow cooker to allow it be even more tender.
- Remove the beef and blend the contents of the slow cooker using a hand blender. Taste it and add extra salt if needed.
- Carve your roast beef.
- Serve together your slow cooker roast beef and gravy with your preferred sides.
Video
Notes
Nutrition
Can’t make it now? Then pin it for later!

Slow cooker roast beef lovely. I have always wondered how to cook something like this and your timings and seasonings were the best i have come across. Delightful!
Topside beef. Great timings thanks for the recipe the timings are just how we like it and yorkshire puddings just go so well with the beef.
Perfectly cooked roast beef. Tried a different recipe and t was so under cooked it was not funny. So i was scared to try another recipe and so glad i came across your recipe it was delicious and i made those Yorkshire pudding things. Fantastic.
Our Christmas lunch this year! Mmmmmmm. The gravy is so delicious it’s almost like soup 🤩🤩🤩