- 16 hours ago
Get ready to make a comforting, classic Sunday dinner from start to finish! In this cozy, step-by-step guide, Nicole shows you how to pull together a full family-style menu — from tender pot roast with rich gravy to creamy mashed potatoes, fresh green beans, and two nostalgic desserts. With simple instructions and helpful tips, Nicole walks you through a perfectly cooked pot roast, smooth and buttery mashed potatoes, Grandma Mac’s seasoned green beans, and a crisp classic salad to round out the plate. And of course, no Sunday supper is complete without dessert — you’ll learn how to make a silky chocolate cream pie and a fun, retro Jello topped with Cool Whip for the ultimate old-school finish.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00I'm bringing back Sunday dinners
00:01because we could all use a little comfort
00:02and I bet you can smell it right now as I say the words.
00:06We are recreating grandma's Sunday dinner
00:08from start to finish.
00:09While everyone's Sunday dinner varies a little bit,
00:12when I ask the question,
00:13when you think of Sunday dinner, what is it?
00:15You think of pot roast was the number one answer.
00:18Starting with a rump roast.
00:20You've seen me do pot roast in the form of a chuck roast.
00:23A rump roast is a little less common,
00:25but I think this is what a lot of grandmothers used back then.
00:28Sundays used to be slow, but now they're filled
00:30with baseball practice and whatever else you have going on,
00:32but I'm bringing it back.
00:33It's time to slow down.
00:34The thing about our grandmothers,
00:36when they cooked, it was very simple.
00:38So I'm gonna keep everything simple today.
00:40We're just gonna start with salt and pepper.
00:43So I think that's the way they did it.
00:44And when available, I'm gonna modernize grandma's dinner,
00:48best I know how, while still keeping to tradition.
00:51A rump roast has enough fat going throughout,
00:54so you don't need all this fat on top,
00:56so I'm gonna trim some of this off.
00:57I've tried to dress as close to a grandma
01:00as they do in 2026 right now.
01:02So I'm doing the classic way to make a pot roast,
01:06which is start on the stove and finish it in the oven.
01:09I'm just gonna start with about a tablespoon of oil
01:12and get it really hot,
01:13because we want to create that flavorful crust on the outside.
01:17And that's what you wanna hear.
01:19Now this process is gonna take a good 10 to 15 minutes.
01:22You want it to be browned on all sides.
01:23While that sears, chop up some onion and celery,
01:27just keeping it basic.
01:28Browned and flavored.
01:30I'm gonna set it aside while we cook our veggies
01:32in the drippings, onion and celery that I've chopped up.
01:35You just wanna cook it for a few minutes
01:36just to start softening these veggies.
01:39I'm also gonna add in a few cloves of garlic.
01:41I like to smash it and then just give it a rough chop.
01:44Smelling good.
01:45I'm also gonna add in a little more salt and pepper here.
01:48Now, I don't know if my grandmother did this,
01:51but adding a little tomato paste is going to help lift off
01:54the flavor that remains on the bottom of our pot.
01:56And I think it's a good idea.
01:58Not much, just about a tablespoon.
02:00The best part about a pot roast is the gravy.
02:02So I'm gonna try to start thickening up our cooking liquid
02:04a little bit so that it cooks in its own gravy.
02:07So I'm gonna go in with a little flour to the veggies,
02:10cook it for about 30 seconds to a minute,
02:12and then go in with our liquid.
02:14The liquid combined with that tomato paste
02:16is really gonna help lift that flavor off the bottom
02:19and keep our pot easy to clean.
02:21We're gonna add potatoes and carrots a little bit later,
02:25but we're gonna go ahead and get it started in the oven now.
02:28Scraping up all that good flavor.
02:30Okay, now one thing that I think our grandmothers did
02:34is use bouillon, beef bouillon.
02:37I'm going to update that just a little bit
02:39by using a bouillon paste.
02:42I think the flavor of this is a little bit better.
02:45And the flavor's a little deeper than what comes in a carton,
02:47so instead of broth.
02:49You can see how I've really cleaned the pot.
02:51So all that flavor now lives in the liquid.
02:54I'm gonna add back in the roast.
02:56And for a little more flavor,
02:57I'm going in with a tablespoon of Worcestershire
02:59and two bay leaves.
03:01All right, we're starting to simmer,
03:02and you can see that our gravy has started to form,
03:06thanks to that flour.
03:07We've got an hour and 45 minutes at 325.
03:10I feel like if your grandmother was telling you
03:12what was on the menu, it would be pot roast
03:15with carrots and potatoes.
03:16Like that, say it like that.
03:18I'm going to do the gold potatoes to go in the pot roast.
03:22I love these because they're nice and tender and buttery,
03:25especially when they're swimming in that delicious gravy.
03:27And then I've got five large carrots.
03:31And I feel like the iconic look is to cut them into,
03:34you know, big chunks like this.
03:38I didn't add these at the beginning
03:40because they might turn mushy after four hours of cooking.
03:43So we add them at about the halfway point.
03:46So I'm gonna pull our roast out, see what it looks like.
03:50It's smelling good.
03:51We'll give it a little flip.
03:53And you can tell, I mean, it's still really tough.
03:55So we've got a ways to go.
03:57Add in our carrots and potatoes.
04:00All right, lid goes back on.
04:02Back into the oven, 325 for another couple hours.
04:05You think grandma did that?
04:14Beautiful, gorgeous.
04:15And it's all ready.
04:16I mean, the gravy is perfect.
04:18Not too thick, not too thin.
04:20Look how tender these veggies are.
04:23The meat is also gonna be so tender,
04:24but just like anything we roast, we're gonna let it rest.
04:28And it's gonna be the perfect amount of time to get the table set.
04:32We are about to have the best Sunday dinner.
04:35I would be willing to bet anything that if you have pot roast on your Sunday dinner menu,
04:41that there would be mashed potatoes next to it.
04:43Even if we're putting potatoes in the pot roast.
04:47Because I also don't think you could have the pot roast without potatoes in it.
04:50My husband says that he would have rice with his pot roast,
04:55but there would also be potatoes in the pot roast.
04:57I'd love to know who still does Sunday dinner.
04:59We tried to bring it back.
05:01Sometimes we do.
05:02We were gonna do it once a month.
05:03It's gotten to be like now like twice a year, but hey, it's something.
05:07But our Sunday dinner, you know, is pasta.
05:11Another thing I think of when I think of Sunday dinner,
05:14if we weren't eating at my grandmother's house, for example,
05:18we might be eating at the cafeteria.
05:21So some of this menu is inspired by the old cafeterias.
05:26The cafeteria restaurants, not the school cafeteria.
05:29And you want to start them in cold water so you can have your pot ready with cold water.
05:33To our potatoes, go ahead and salt your water.
05:36You can't really mess this up either.
05:38You want to cook these until they are like super falling apart.
05:41So in another saucepan, I like to heat up milk and butter.
05:45And we're going to add that in instead of adding cold milk in.
05:48Just a little trick they teach you in culinary school.
05:51I'll show you how tender these potatoes are.
05:55See, they just are super fork tender.
05:58Not where they're just barely fork tender, but where they almost fall apart.
06:02All right, this is key to getting the best fluffy mashed potatoes.
06:06Drain them.
06:07And then we're going to put them back in the hot pot.
06:10Set it over the burner while it's still hot.
06:12This way, any excess moisture can evaporate out.
06:15See how they're just kind of falling apart.
06:17I like to go ahead and give them a head start.
06:19Mashing while they're hot before I add anything to them.
06:21Because we're not a fan of like super lumpy mashed potatoes in my house.
06:25So I like to mash them at this stage and then throughout the whole process.
06:29And we're going to start adding our warm buttery milk.
06:32A little bit at a time.
06:34You don't want them to get too watery.
06:35And light, fluffy.
06:38Simplicity at its finest.
06:40A little taste.
06:44Mmm, so delicate.
06:45They just float.
06:48Salt and pepper.
06:50When I make them at home, I usually at this point add in a big spoonful of sour cream.
06:55But I don't think grandma did that.
06:57So when it comes time to serve them while they're hot, I'll add in a little more butter for the
07:02top.
07:02When it comes to the green vegetable that would be on the table at Sunday dinner,
07:06sometimes I think that nothing else existed except green beans.
07:10Hands down the number one answer when I said what was on your table for Sunday dinner.
07:16The only vegetable mentioned, green beans.
07:19They weren't fancy around my house.
07:20They could have even been from a can.
07:22But they were definitely short, not like the fancy sautéed haricot ver.
07:26Okay.
07:27Got some bacon cooking back here, and we're going to smother these green beans
07:32with a little bacon, onion, and then just let them cook.
07:36All right, the bacon is good and crispy and the fat has rendered out.
07:39That's the fat we're going to cover our onion and green beans in.
07:43And we're just going to leave the bacon in there.
07:45I like to give the onion about a 30-second head start.
07:48That way the flavor can extract out of it a little better.
07:51One of the top five greatest smells is onion cooking and bacon grease.
07:56It's changed my mind.
07:57I know for a fact this is a grandma green bean recipe
08:00because it comes from allrecipes.com, and it's called Grandma Max Green Beans.
08:05So I had to do it with my own twist, of course.
08:09The seasonings, I'm going in with some seasoned salt.
08:11This is about as classic as it gets.
08:13And a little regular salt, some pepper, and then just a little bit of sugar.
08:18This is probably a southern grandma.
08:20I know that because I started with bacon.
08:22All right, now we're going to add some liquid.
08:23It says just enough water to cook the green beans.
08:27They'll cook down a little bit, so I'm not going to submerge them in water.
08:30I'm just going to go about halfway.
08:32These are going to slow cook.
08:33I'm just going to bring them up to a simmer, cover them, and just let them go.
08:38About 45 minutes of good simmering.
08:41These are going to be nice and soft.
08:43Let me just get a little sample.
08:48Mmm.
08:49Mmm.
08:49Mmm.
08:50Grandma Mac knew what she was doing.
08:51Whether at your grandmother's or the cafeteria, there was a little salad on the table.
08:56And the salad couldn't be more basic.
08:58And when I think about my childhood and what I remember is that the dressing that my mom always made
09:04sure we had was Thousand Island.
09:06So we're going to have a simple salad with Thousand Island dressing.
09:08I'm going to make the Thousand Island dressing.
09:10And you have everything on hand to make it, so you really don't need to buy the bottled stuff.
09:16Ketchup.
09:17I know separately it's weird.
09:18And sweet relish.
09:20A little salt and pepper.
09:22And my mom always added a dash of vinegar.
09:25It's usually about half as much ketchup as there is mayonnaise.
09:28You just want to get that nice, like, light shrimpy color.
09:34I mean, that took five seconds.
09:36When it came to salads back then, they were very simple, as is everything else.
09:41But no fancy lettuces, okay?
09:43We are not bougie back in the day.
09:46I happen to love this kind of salad.
09:48Basic isn't always bad.
09:50They wouldn't go ahead and dress it.
09:52It would just be built, maybe even individually plated.
09:56Ain't nobody got time for that.
09:58Simply lettuce, cucumber, and not the fancy cucumbers.
10:04But you can make them fancy.
10:05Tomato, cheese, and then croutons.
10:09And this is going to be so good with our homemade Thousand Island dressing.
10:14One of my favorite things I used to do is take a crouton like it was a chip,
10:18and the dressing was the dip.
10:23Still hits.
10:25Grandma always had something sweet on the table.
10:27The real dessert I remember my grandmother having, I'm going to surprise you with at the end.
10:31But it's not much cooking to that one, so I'm going to whip something up for you.
10:35I did a little poll on my Instagram to see what dessert was most commonly served after Sunday dinner
10:41at your grandmother's.
10:41The two most popular answers were banana pudding and a pie.
10:46Well, you've seen me do banana pudding, so now we're going to do a pie.
10:50And when it comes to pie, I think the most popular was either a fruit pie or a chocolate pie,
10:55so I'm going to do a chocolate pie.
10:56So I just did store-bought pie dough.
10:58And then we're just going to, in this pot, start with three egg yolks.
11:01You might have been a part of that poll that I asked on my Instagram.
11:05And if you're not, are you following me on Instagram?
11:09Shameless plug.
11:10Put my Instagram handle at the bottom when I talk about that.
11:14So the egg yolks, we're going in with a cup and a half of sugar.
11:16This is one of those desserts that, just like all old-fashioned desserts,
11:20they're made with pantry staples.
11:22This could be one that you can whip up on the fly.
11:25It's a lot of sugar until you know it's going to be good.
11:27All right, I'm just going to beat this together until it's good and creamy.
11:31Should I do this with a hand mixer?
11:34I feel like they would have.
11:35I feel like she would have used her electric mixer.
11:39People just walk in and mess up.
11:44My egg yolks were not large enough.
11:46Going in with another one.
11:48Guess the chickens were bigger back then.
11:49So now we put in our cocoa powder and a little cornstarch.
11:53This will help thicken it in addition to that egg yolk.
11:56Kind of like we're just making a chocolate pudding.
11:58And a little salt.
11:59Okay, now we add in the milk.
12:01It's three cups of milk.
12:03So I know this looks really thick.
12:05I'm going to thin it out and then thicken it back up on the stove.
12:09Need multitasking.
12:10Once this is smooth and well blended, now we go to the stove.
12:13And we're going to cook it until it comes to a simmer.
12:15We're going to cook it for about five minutes until it's good and thick.
12:18The recipe states to stir it with a wooden spoon the whole time.
12:22All that sugar will dissolve and it'll get nice and thick.
12:25It smells so good.
12:27Look how thick it is.
12:29Coating the back of the spoon.
12:32A little sample for me.
12:34Mmm.
12:34And then the final, final step is to stir in a tablespoon of cold butter and a little vanilla.
12:40Stir that until that butter melts.
12:42Why do we complicate things?
12:44Life and recipes were simpler back then.
12:46That's why we're bringing it back.
12:48All right, now we're going to pour it into our pie crust.
12:52You want to let it cool on the counter for a little bit and then pop it into the fridge
12:55for a couple hours.
12:56If you're having the family over on Sunday, you could easily put this together on Friday or Saturday.
13:04Time to set the table.
13:05Our pie is done.
13:07I finished it off with some fresh whipped cream and shaved chocolate.
13:10But you want to know what my grandmother really had on the table for dessert on Sundays?
13:16Can you taste it?
13:18This is also how they would maybe serve it up at the cafeteria.
13:21And this is the time you break out the can.
13:23We have two desserts because I couldn't resist.
13:25Don't forget the bread and butter.
13:27There was never a meal at your grandparents that didn't include bread and butter.
13:31We have the feast start to finish a grandma's Sunday dinner right here.
13:36You will never find a plate more comforting than this.
13:38Let's dig in before we go to dessert.
13:42I mean, so tender.
13:48Look how tender this roast is.
13:50I mean, pulls right apart with a fork.
13:56I did it.
13:58That's the flavor of grandma's pot roast.
14:03I'm so proud of that flavor.
14:04You can get that perfect bite with those mashed potatoes.
14:11The potatoes just float down your throat, I'm telling you.
14:15So soft, so tender, and the perfect vessel for that gravy.
14:19Green beans.
14:23Wait, don't forget about my healthy salad right here.
14:32I'm telling you, we overcomplicate things.
14:35They did it right back then.
14:36Y'all need to call your family and have them over on Sunday.
14:40Just for old time's sake.
14:42Jiggle, jiggle.
14:47I don't even know the last time I had this.
14:49And I'm pretty sure I've never served this to my kids.
14:51And then our final treat, our chocolate pie.
14:55How does chocolate pie for dessert sound?
14:58Sounds like my favorite thing in the whole world.
15:04I forget about this pie.
15:05I don't know how.
15:07I'll finish this whole slice.
15:09But not in front of you.
15:11I'm telling you, if you are looking for a taste of your childhood,
15:14or just a little nostalgia, grandma's Sunday dinner is where it's at.
15:19From start to finish, a complete dinner, didn't even break a sweat,
15:23take back your slow Sundays and make this menu.
15:26You will not regret it.
15:27I think I've made the grandmothers proud, don't you?
15:31I'm going to be a good grandmother someday.
15:35But not in time soon.
15:37If I just jinxed myself, I swear.
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