Slow Cooker BBQ Cherry Cola Flat Iron Steak 

Slow Cooker BBQ Cherry Cola Flat Iron Steak : This slow cooker meal is perfect for your July Fourth party. It uses a raw beef flat iron steak and just a few simple pantry items to make something soft, juicy, and full of flavor. Flat iron steak comes from the shoulder part of the cow. It has nice streaks of fat running through it, which means it stays juicy even after cooking low and slow for many hours. The meat soaks up all the yummy flavors around it instead of drying out.

In this recipe, the steak sits in a slow cooker with sweet and smoky barbecue sauce, sweet cherry preserves, a little bit of cola, and small, colorful cherry tomatoes that add a fun, festive touch. You just add everything to the slow cooker, turn it on, and forget about it until it’s time to eat. Your friends and family will love it so much they’ll want the recipe for themselves.

Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 2 to 2½ pounds raw beef flat iron steak, with the extra fat on the outside trimmed off
• 1½ cups thick barbecue sauce (a smoky or hickory flavor works best)
• ¾ cup cherry preserves (or you can use seedless cherry jam instead)
• 1 cup regular cola (not diet)
• 1½ cups small tricolor cherry or grape tomatoes, left whole

Slow Cooker BBQ Cherry Cola Flat Iron Steak: Directions

1. Add the steak to the slow cooker. Lay the raw flat iron steak flat on the bottom of a 5- to 6-quart slow cooker. If your steak is too long to fit, you can fold it gently, but try to keep it in one flat layer as much as you can. Make sure it sits in the middle with room around the edges for the other ingredients.
2. Add the tomatoes. Sprinkle the whole cherry or grape tomatoes around the steak inside the slow cooker. Try to spread them out so they form a loose circle or small groups around the meat. Keeping them whole lets them slowly soften and pop open later, mixing their juice into the sauce.
3. Mix the sauce. In a medium-sized bowl, stir together the barbecue sauce, cherry preserves, and cola using a whisk until the mix looks smooth with no lumps. The sauce should still be a bit thick but easy to pour. The cola helps thin it out and makes the sauce turn rich and caramel-colored while it cooks.
4. Pour the sauce over everything. Slowly pour the barbecue-cherry-cola mixture over the top of the steak and tomatoes. Make sure most of the meat is covered, and the tomatoes are sitting in the sauce too. Use a spoon to gently push down any parts of the steak that are sticking out so they cook evenly with the rest.
5. Cook it low and slow. Put the lid on your slow cooker. Cook it on LOW heat for 7 to 8 hours, or on HIGH heat for 3½ to 4 hours. The steak is ready when it feels very soft and falls apart easily when you poke it with a fork. Try not to lift the lid too early, since that lets heat escape and slows down the cooking.
6. Shred the steak. Once the meat is fully cooked and tender, use a pair of tongs to carefully lift it out and place it on a cutting board. Let it rest for about 5 minutes so the juices settle. Then take two forks and pull the meat apart into small, bite-sized shreds, following the natural lines in the meat. If you want a less greasy sauce, use a spoon to skim off any extra fat floating on top of the liquid in the slow cooker.
7. Mix the beef back in. Put the shredded beef back into the slow cooker with the sauce and softened tomatoes. Stir everything together so the meat gets fully coated in that tasty sauce. Give it a taste, and if you’d like, add a pinch of salt or a little more barbecue sauce to make it sweeter or smokier, depending on what you like.
8. Let it rest on warm, then serve. Switch your slow cooker to the WARM setting and let the beef sit for another 10 to 15 minutes. This gives the meat extra time to soak up more flavor from the sauce. When you’re ready to eat, serve the beef right from the slow cooker. Spoon it over soft buns, rice, or roasted potatoes, and don’t forget to add some of those juicy burst tomatoes and extra sauce on top.