Homemade Roast Beef

Homemade roast beef like your grandmother used to make, doesn’t have to be a memory. Make your own Sunday roast beef with brown onion gravy and check out my flavorful roast beef rub for a little zing.

Homemade roast beef took two distinct paths in my family.  My French grandmother and grandfather, liked it rare —  to the point of bloody, with a simple au jus.  Grandad (my Dad’s Dad) liked his meat, well done with plenty of pan gravy — my grandmother, Myne cooked it to his liking. I always felt that there should be a happy medium (something I wish for in politics too).

Ingredients For Roast Beef Rub:

Before we get to cooking times for this homemade roast beef, let’s first check out the roast beef rub. Honestly, this is more of a paste than a rub, however, since you rub it all over the meat, we’ll stick to “rub” title.  You’ll need:

• Kosher Salt
• Onion Powder
• Garlic Powder
• Chili Powder
• Black Pepper
• Worcestershire Sauce
• Maple Syrup
• Liquid Smoke

You’ll want to give the roast beef rub a chance to marry with the meat, so coat your roast with this blend at least 8 hours ahead or overnight.

Before you’re ready to roast, take the meat out of the refrigerator and let it rest on the counter for about half an hour to forty-five minutes to bring it closer to room temperature. You don’t want to stick an ice cold roast in a hot oven, because that can affect the cooking times.

One of the things BOTH my grandmother’s did when cooking a roast — adding onions and shallots to the pan, tossed with a bit of olive oil, a zhuzh of salt and pepper. The onion mixture became the bed that the roast sat on.  They soften up while cooking and some will get charred and crispy, while others just melt and caramelize.  You want it both ways, trust me.

Use any cooking times as a gauge, but not as a hard and fast rule. I say that because your recipe may call for a 3-pound roast, when in fact yours might only weigh 2.63 pounds.  Or your oven may run hot or cold.  My oven is hotter in the back than the front. The best way to judge doneness is by temperature… on the inside of the meat. For that, you need a good quality meat thermometer.  I had two, (one that gave a range — but was far from accurate) the other, a very reliable digital read thermometer, until it died. In my experience, the cheap ones ALWAYS DIE.   So I made an investment in this  Thermapen One {affiliate link} and I haven’t looked back.

• The Thermapen One takes an accurate temperature reading in 2-3 seconds.
• It has a backlight for nighttime grilling.
• Thermapen naturally goes into sleep mode when you set it down.
• It also wakes up when you pick it up.
• This digital thermometer folds for compact storage.
• It takes a AAA battery, not those hard-to-find button-style batteries that my old thermometer that crapped out on me, had. In fact, I searched high and low to find a replacement battery and installed it, only to discover that the issue wasn’t the battery, it was that the thermometer was dead.

The Thermapen is not a cheap item, (running around $100 – but you can sometimes get it on sale through my affiliate link) but every grill-master, food blogger and professional cook I know swears by it, so THAT means something… 

Ok, the infomercial is over — back to our homemade roast beef and, yes, that brown onion gravy.  While the roast is resting on a cutting board (so the juices can redistribute), make the gravy in the roasting pan (just like grandma used to do). Start with a few shakes of vinegar over the onions. The vinegar is critical. it adds a tanginess and depth that transforms the gravy from a fatty one-note blah — to a symphony of beefy onion flavor.  It’s what makes the gravy so irresistible. To thicken the gravy, I recommend Wondra flour for lump-free perfection.

Stir the flour into the pan drippings and onions  (you can use a knob of butter if you don’t have enough fat in the pan) until you have a paste, then gradually add in the stock or broth, stirring constantly over a medium high heat until it starts to bubble and thicken.  Transfer the brown onion gravy to a gravy boat and carve the homemade roast beef into thin slices.

Eye of round roast is a very lean cut, so it’s important not to over cook it.  This one was juicy and flavorful (but if I’m honest, it was probably 5 minutes past where I would normally cook it — damn that thermometer…)

I served my homemade roast beef with onion gravy over a bed of cauliflower mash, but my browned butter sea salt mashed potatoes would be wonderful  with it as well or this fancy potato soufflé.

More Sunday suppers you’ll love:

• Cheesy Scalloped Ham and Potatoes
• Stuffed Rotisserie Leg of Lamb
• Wood Smoked Beer Can Chicken
• Homestyle Pot Roast
• Simple Herb Roasted Chicken with Pan Gravy
• Baked Spaghetti Pie
• Chard and White Bean Stuffed Leg of Lamb
• Meatloaf with Mushroom Gravy

Garlic & Zest is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.

Pin “Homemade Roast Beef with Brown Onion Gravy” for Later!