French Dip with Toasted buns

So I've seen the tutorial for the crockpot French Dip in quite a few places.  It's super simple and quite delicious.

Crockpot French Dip Ingredients:

2-3 lbs Chuck Roast (trim any big pieces of fat)

2 cans of Beef Consomme Soup

1 Packet of Good Seasons Italian Dressing Mix.  Do not use Kraft, it's meant to be thick and creamy and will turn it into superglue.

Put the beef in the crockpot, sprinkle the Italian on top and dump both cans of soup on that.  Let it go on low for 8-10 hours.  Take out the meat, shred it up and put it on bread.  Use the juices left over for dunking.

Anyone who knows me has probably observed that when I go to a restaurant for the first time, I order a French Dip.  If they can pull that off, they are worthy of my business.  There are usually three factors to a good French Dip.  1) The meat shouldn't be tough or dry.  Ever.  There's no excuse. 2) The au jus shouldn't be bland.  3) The bread has to be toasted just right.  If it's not, the juicy beef will get the bread gummy before you get a chance to dunk it in the au jus and the subsequent dunk will basically liquify the bread.  A good buttery toasting forms a protective barrier so it's still crispy when you dunk.  Trust me, I've eaten hundreds.  Since the crockpot French Dip recipe shows you how to do 1 & 2, here's the best way to nail #3.

Start with good buns from the bakery.  Not the bulk made perfect circle hamburger buns that are banned in my house, but something like these beauties.  Or a good hoagie bun would be great too.  Slice them in half.

Take a chunk of butter and put it in your skillet.  I could do two whole buns at a time and ended up using 1.33 tbsp of butter per load.

Melt it over medium and get it so that it's nice and bubbly.

Drop your buns on the butter, you can move them around to soak up all of the butter surrounding them.  It takes a couple of minutes to get a good toast, I pick will usually just peek under there periodically to see how they're coming.  When you finish one batch, wipe out the pan with a few paper towels while not burning your fingers.  Let the pan cool down with no heat for a minute.  You want your buns brown, not your butter. Throw another chunk of butter in and go med-low until the butter is hot and turn back up to medium once your buns are added.

Put your shredded meat on your toasty buns and dunk in the juice left in your crockpot.  These buns are also great with burgers.  Also, sometimes I heat up a pile of thinly sliced deli ham and cheese and heat it in the microwave and then slide it on the toasted bun for a grade A hot ham & cheese.  Holy crap, I'm hungry now.