The Easy Tip for Making Perfect Roast Beef

There is nothing quite as impressive as serving roast beef for holiday guests. Something about tender, rosy beef with a gorgeous gravy makes it feel like you spent all day cooking something super special—even if it was actually quite effortless.

And truly great roast beef requires little more than the right cut of beef, a generous seasoning with salt, and a nice low oven temperature. In fact, you hardly even need a roasting pan for roast beef. You read that right: For the easiest and best roast beef skip the pan and roast the meat directly on the oven rack. 

For the Best Roast Beef, Skip the Roasting Pan 

Perfect roast beef really comes down to temperature control. Most recipes will have you bring the beef to room temperature for a few hours before cooking and after a quick blast of higher heat to brown, you will cook the roast low and slow to your desired temperature.

The goal of all this temperature control is a roast that is brown on the outside and pink on the inside with no grey ring between the pink and brown—it's perfectly cooked from edge to edge.

So why would you put your roast in a pan that will insulate the bottom and sides? Especially when you can use the oven’s natural convection to evenly cook all the sides. This is why the perfect roast beef is cooked directly on your oven’s center rack. This is the same technique that Simply Recipes' founder, Elise Bauer, uses in her famous roast beef recipe.

Here’s How To Cook Your Roast Beef Without a Pan

You can use this technique with any roast beef recipe, but Elise Bauer’s original recipe is where I first learned this tip and it happens to be a perfect recipe.

A couple hours before you plan to cook the beef, bring it to room temperature and season generously with salt. If you have a roast with a particular long or thin end, this is also the best time to tie it neatly with butcher’s twine so it roasts evenly.

Arrange your oven racks so that one is in the center of the oven and the other is just underneath it. Heat the oven to 375°F and cover a baking sheet with foil. This makes clean-up easier.

When ready to roast, set the beef roast directly on the rack set to the center with the fat side up. Place the prepared baking sheet on the rack underneath the roast. You’ll roast the beef at this higher oven temperature for 30 minutes before lowering the oven to 225°F to cook for another 90 minutes to two hours. 

Since the roast is uninhibited by a pan, the oven’s heat can easily move around the roast, and as the fat melts, it bathes the entire roast. The baking sheet captures the dripping. (You can use it for gravy, Yorkshire pudding, or roasting vegetables.)

Once you try this method for perfect roast beef, you’ll wonder what other delicious and impressive meals you can make without a pan.