Making prime rib feels difficult, doesn’t it? Just the sound of it is intimidating. Two obvious reasons for that are how expensive it is (hate to mess up an $80 6lb roast!) and how complicated most recipes are. Everyone seems to have this trick or that to make the best prime rib recipe, but how necessary is all that?
Cutting Board | Towel (similar) | Meat Thermometer
In my opinion, not necessary at all. I’ve been making my prime rib this same way year after year, and it’s nothing but smiles, praise, and satisfied “Ahs” after the meal. This recipe makes it so easy, you’ll be making prime rib on a random Tuesday!
Prime rib has a lot of flavor all on its own. It even has a small amount of naturally occurring sodium, so anything I do to it is to not mask its amazing flavor, and complement it instead. I make a simple seasoning “paste” for the outside of the roast, with all real ingredients and no spice powders. You don’t want the outside fully covered in it – just rub it all around the outside in a thin layer.
We start with a hot roast for 10 minutes at 500 degrees, then drop the temperature to 350 and lay a loose piece of foil over top to keep the outside from over browning as it comes up to temp. Once you hit 130 internal, take out and let rest, and you’ll have the most tender, juicy prime rib of your life.
The Best Prime Rib Recipe You Can Do Perfectly Every Time
Ingredients:
- 6 lb prime rib roast, bone-in preferable
For the Seasoning Paste
- 1 tbsp avocado oil
- 2 tsp honey
- 1 tbsp coarse-grain mustard
- 1 tbsp salt
- 5-6 cloves garlic peeled, stem trimmed
- 2 tsp peppercorns
- 2 tsp rosemary needles dried
- 2 tsp coriander seed
- 2 tsp fennel seed
Directions:
- Preheat oven to 500 °F, and place a low-sided oven-safe pan inside as it heats. Cast iron is preferable, but stainless steel also works.
- Trim any excess fat from the prime rib roast and set aside.
- In a mortar and pestle, combine the garlic cloves, peppercorns, rosemary needles, coriander seed, and fennel seed. Smash together until a paste forms. Add the remaining ingredients and combine until a uniform paste is achieved.
- Evenly rub the paste on the outside of the roast. It should not be a thick coating. Place a wire-lead thermometer into the center of the roast.
- Once the oven is up to temp, quickly remove the pan from the oven and close the door to prevent heat loss. Place the roast, bone-side down into the pan. Quickly place the pan back in the oven and roast for 10 minutes. Open the oven door and reduce the temperature to 350 °F. Loosely lay a piece of foil over top the roast and close the oven door.
- Roat to desired temperature – I find that 130 °F in the center tends to be safest for most crowds, delivering a good medium rare in the center and more medium toward the ends. For rare, remove at 115 °F or 120 °F internal. Carve and serve warm.
Made this again for the 3rd year in a row. Still excellent!!
Hi, just wanted to comment on how delicious this roast is. The seasonings are so good! I made 2 6lb roasts (bone-in) for the holiday, and followed the directions almost completely. Added a few minutes to the initial bake to account for the extra roast, and forgot to tent them for the next 10 minutes or so, but it didn’t matter. The roast was flavorful and juicy. We had one that ended up medium rare and one slightly more medium, which was perfect for our crowd. I enjoyed this recipe more than the ones where the oven gets turned off. Less room for error if someone opens the oven too soon. I forget how long it took overall, but was pretty close to the 10-15 minutes per pound, suggested in the comments. I checked after an hour, and it took probably about 30 more minutes.
Will be making this again, thanks for the recipe.
So glad you liked it!
Amazing delicious! We had my son and his wife over for Christmas dinner and prepared the prime rib with your paste and we got amazing flavor! We will definitely keep this recipe, thank you!!
So happy to hear it!
Merry Christmas! The honey, mustard and fennel grabbed me–gonna give this a try on our 7 ribber today!
You the best in the west