Off-Oven Roast Beef

By Sam Sifton

Off-Oven Roast Beef
Marcus Nilsson for The New York Times; Food Stylist: Maggie Ruggiero. Prop Stylist: Megan Hedgpeth.
Total Time
2 hours 30 minutes
Rating
5(1,682)
Comments
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Ingredients

Yield:4 to 6 main courses, with leftovers for sandwiches
  • 1beef roast, like top, eye or bottom round, approximately 3 pounds
  • 1tablespoon kosher salt
  • 1tablespoon freshly ground black pepper
  • 3cloves garlic, peeled and minced
  • 1tablespoon olive oil
  • Red-pepper flakes to taste
Ingredient Substitution Guide

Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Remove roast from refrigerator. Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

  2. Step 2

    In a small bowl, mix together salt, pepper, garlic, olive oil and red-pepper flakes to create a kind of paste. Rub this all over the roast. Place beef in a roasting pan or cast-iron skillet, fat-side up, and put in oven. Cook undisturbed for 5 minutes per pound.

  3. Step 3

    Turn off oven. Do not open oven door. Leave roast to continue cooking, undisturbed, for two hours.

  4. Step 4

    After two hours, remove roast from oven. Slice and serve alongside, ideally, a watercress salad, some skillet-fried potatoes and a small tureen of Henry Bain sauce.

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Ratings

5 out of 5
1,682 user ratings
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Comments

Lutheranliar

I call this Magic Meat and make it almost every week. (In fact, I made it just last night). Here’s the trick: you must follow the recipe EXACTLY. Take the roast out of the fridge right before you turn on the oven. This means the roast is COLD when it goes in. (If you start with room-temp meat, it’ll be too done in the middle.) You roast at 500 for EXACTLY 5 minutes per pound. I ask Siri: “How much is 2.85 times 5?” Then I roast for 14.25 minutes, using a timer. Timer for the 2 hrs. oven off too!

Mirta

We like our roast beef rare so I left in the oven for one hour instead of two. Perfect!

Sam Sifton

Leave it off!

Rachel I

I have a modern self-cooling Miele oven. Will this method work the same in this type of oven?

HP

I have done this with a pork loin roast. It takes a little less time in the oven. I leave a 1.5 lb roast in the oven for just an hour after I shut the oven off. It is perfect. A great option to deli meat!

Pete

Followed this recipe step by step, but it turns out my oven loses heat a bit quicker than the average oven. The interior temp was 105 and the exterior was room temperature. I took a gamble and put it back in the oven for 10 minutes at 300 degrees. I was nervous, but it ended up coming out perfectly medium rare.

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