This is the ultimate prime rib technique. I’ve used it the last two Christmases and it produced superior results and I highly recommend it. I very skeptical when I saw the beef would roast at 150 degrees Fahrenheit, but, it’s simply brilliant.

Reasons to love this technique:

1. Set it and forget it for five ½ – six ½ hours!
2. It comes out of the oven and MUST rest for 45-60 minutes allowing you to use the oven for other purposes, like making Fail Proof Yorkshire Puddings.
3. The slow and low temperature creates a perfect cook from edge to edge. No more bullet of raw beef in the center and gray/overcooked meat on the outside.
4. As long as you keep the cooked beef covered loosely in foil, you can determine the exact time you’ll serve dinner because all you need before slicing is 10 minutes in the hot oven. This is awesome!

Technique:

1. This works with a bone-in (a must), well-marbled prime rib from three-12 pounds. I typically make a four to five-pound roast to feed four-six people.
2. The day prior to your dinner party, take the beef out of the packaging and place on a rack in a roasting pan and place in the fridge uncovered.
3. The early morning of your dinner, apply a very generous coating of black pepper and kosher salt to the roast and put back in the fridge until ready to cook.
4. Two hours before cooking, take the roast out of the fridge to allow to come to room temperature.
5. Place the roast, still on the rack in the roasting pan, in a 150-175 degree Fahrenheit oven (some ovens won’t stay on at 150 degrees, so raise to 175 degrees if that happens). I cook mine at 150 degrees. Place an instant-read thermometer in the center of the roast (make sure it doesn’t touch a bone). Cook for five ½ – six ½ hours, until the thermometer reads 120 degrees for rare, 130 for medium-rare or 135 for medium. Anything more cooked than medium is a sin, don’t be sinful. For a five-pound roast, mine took just over 6 hours.
6. Once the roast reaches the desired temp, 120 degrees at my home, take out of the oven and tent it loosely with foil. Allow the roast to rest for 45-60 minutes.
7. Raise the oven temp to 500 degrees and place the roast back in the oven, without the foil, for 10 minutes to crisp up on the outside. I only crisped mine up for seven minutes, but will go the full 10 next time for a deeper brown color.
8. Serve at once!

The fabulous person whose method this is, is J. Kenji López-Alt, a stay-at-home dad who’s moonlighted as a culinary consultant of Serious Eats. Read all about the fascinating testing he did to come up with this perfect method on Serious Eats. This guy’s changed my Christmas dinners forever and I’m very grateful!

Please let me know how your prime rib turns out when you try this method!

Cheers,

Veronique