Garlic and Herb Bottom Round Roast Beef with Mustard Sherry Sauce

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A simple home-cooked roast beef recipe that’s perfect for everything from elegant dinners to classic sandwiches. Garlic, herbs, butter, and a mustard sherry sauce complete this perfect roast beef dinner.

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Whether you’re a Sunday roast person or an “only on Christmas” person, a good roast beef recipe is something everyone should have tucked under their belt.

It took me years to work up the courage to try a roast on my own. And numerous failures before I developed a recipe I was actually proud of. And here it is!

Simple, delicious, and so tender.

TL;DR:

• Salt the beef. Rest in the fridge for at least 1 hour, up to 12 hours.
• Preheat oven to 400° F
• Set the beef on the counter for 1 hour before cooking to bring to room temp.
• Slice veggies and toss with olive oil and a bit of salt and pepper. Set aside.
• Combine softened butter, herbs, and spices. Set aside.
• Heat a large cast iron skillet with some olive oil over medium-high heat.
• Sear beef until browned on all sides.
• Remove beef from the pan. Discard the excess oil.
• Smear the butter mixture all over the beef.
• Layer veggies into the cast iron skillet.
• Place beef, fat side up, on top of veggies in the skillet.
• Cook in the oven for 15 minutes.
• Reduce heat to 350°F and cook for roughly 40 more minutes.
• Remove from the heat and let rest for 30 minutes.
• Serve with mustard sherry sauce (recipe below!)

Bottom Round Roast Details

Beef cuts are something that still give me pause in grocery stores. There are so many! And they all have about 5 different names, so it’s hard to keep track. 

But “bottom round roast” lays everything out for you in the name.

Round roasts come from the very back end of the cow. These are the muscles that power the back legs. They get quite a bit of use and tend to be low on fat and high in muscle fiber and full of tough connective tissue to move the cow along.

Without getting too deeply into a slow-twitch vs. fast-twitch muscle fiber conversation, let’s look quickly at the pros and cons of the bottom round roast.

• The Pros: It’s lean, healthy, economical, and flavorful.
• The Cons: It’s lean and tough.

The bottom round roast is the lowest of the cuts and is one of the leanest. The meat is very flavorful itself, but you do lose out on that flavor storage you often find in fats.

But round roasts are on the cheaper end. You can get a good 2-3 pounds of meat for much less than you would a more expensive cut like a ribeye or rib roast. The trade off? You need to cook it longer!

How to Cook Bottom Round Roast

The key to cooking lean and tough cuts of beef is “low and slow.” You need a long roast to give the connective tissue time to soften and break apart. 

This recipe doesn’t go into a 6-hour slow cooking. So you can still have dinner on the table within a few hours!

Salting your Beef

Step 1 of this recipe is to coat your bottom round roast in Kosher salt. (Use Kosher Salt! Table salt is too finely ground and will over-salt everything.)

Almost every cut of beef benefits from a good dose of salt. Salt draws out the moisture, dissolves, then re-enters the meat, dragging flavor with it!

With such a big cut, it’s a good idea to salt the meat in advance. You could do it the night before or the morning of for best results. 

But even just 2 hours of salting can make a huge difference in the moisture and flavor content.

Keep your salted beef in the fridge until an hour before cooking for meat safety. 

Then take your meat out 1 hour before you plan to cook so it rises to room temperature. (This ensures even cooking across the whole cut of meat.)

Why You Should Brown Meat

Step 2 of this recipe is searing the meat on all sides until it’s brown.

Searing the meat supposedly locks in the moisture so your beef stays tender and juicy, especially during a long roast. (Though this myth is highly debated.)

But browning the meat causes it to go through the maillard reaction. (Lots of actual science in this post too!) 

I’ll skip the biochemical details, but the maillard reaction caused by browning meat opens up the flavors in the beef and really deepens the flavor. You’ll end up with a sweeter, richer meat.

That’s why this classic stove-top beef stew recipe is so flavorful!

Garlic and Herb Butter

Take your butter out of the fridge at the same time you are letting your beef rest. 

With soft butter, you can mix all of the herbs and seasonings into the butter with a fork in about 30 seconds. Easy and quick.

I chose a richer flavor scheme for this recipe. 

• Garlic: how could you not add garlic!
• Marjoram: goes well with beef. It’s slightly sweet and pairs excellently with browned meat
• Cloves: a hint of sweet and a hint of hot, a perfect seasonal joiner for all these spices, adds a hint of richness to the rub
• Pepper: I can’t imagine a steak without some fresh cracked black pepper
• Dried Mustard: for just a bit of a flavor to pair with the sauce
• Thyme: adds a rich herbal, woody, floral flavor
• Parsley: fresh, simple and earthy

Of course, you can choose other seasonings. Some options that would go particularly well with beef are:

• Rich: Allspice, Cinnamon
• Unique: Coffee, Cacao Powder
• Classics: Tarragon, Rosemary, Basil, Oregano

Oven Roasting

Pop your veggies into the skillet and settle your beef on top and you’re ready to go!

Just make sure your beef is fat-side-up! As the fat melts, you want it to wash over the muscle fibers and infuse them with flavor.

Start your roasting at a higher temperature so that you really get that hot, crisp, seared exterior outside. This also helps crust your herbs to your meat.

Then lower the oven temperature to get the low, slow roast that really softens and tenderizes this particular cut of meat. This will melt the connective tissue and fill the meat with the flavor without losing any of the moisture it needs.

Don’t cook it too long. You only need about 20 minutes per pound for a medium-rare roast. Keep it a little short of this estimate too, since you’ve already roasted it for 15 minutes at high heat.

If you’re worried, take it out early and use a meat thermometer to measure. It’s better to have to put it back in than to slice into it and find dried out roast beef!

How to make a Mustard Sherry Sauce

I love a bit of creamy spice with my roast beef. This one works well as an alternative to a mustard rub or horseradish cream.

It’s a mild mustard sauce. If you need something sharper, add in some horseradish, spicy brown mustard, or extra pepper.

Step 1: Make a roux

Melt the butter and combine with flour over medium heat. Cook for 1 minute. This is what will help the sauce thicken later.

*Optional* You can add garlic to the butter and cook for 1 minute before adding flour. But this recipe already creates a very garlicky beef, so I avoid over-garlic-ing (new word) by leaving it out of the sauce.

Step 2: Turn the heat down

Turn the heat down first! Take the heat to medium low so you don’t burn any of the seasonings.

A slow heat helps keep the clumps out too.

Step 3: Add the cream

Pour your cream directly into the pan and stir continuously until it’s smooth and starts to thicken.

Step 4: Add the mustard and sherry

Add your 2 tablespoons of both ingredients now and stir until smooth and combined with the cream and butter mixture.

Step 5: Add in thyme, salt, and pepper

Sprinkle your fresh thyme, cracked pepper, and a dash of salt over your sauce and stir. Cook for 1 more minute. 

Then remove from heat and serve immediately. This sauce will congeal as it cools so you don’t want to make it too far in advance unless you plan on reheating.

What to serve with Garlic and Herb Bottom Round Roast Beef?

A plate of rich roast beef, a side of sautéd or roasted veggies, and a scoop of fluffy mashed potatoes…that’s the ideal image!

When it comes to veggies, you can go for sautéed, roasted, or fresh.

Sautéed green beans with garlicky mushrooms and toasted almonds is a super simple recipe. But it’s also dressed up enough to sit beside a classic dinner like roast beef. Plus the garlicky mushrooms pair so well with garlicky herbed roast beef…

Classic easy roast veggies are classic for a reason. They’re gorgeous, simple, healthy, and they pair with nearly everything. If it’s the cold season, why not pair with roasted butternut squash with cardamom or maple cinnamon acorn squash slices.

Fresh veggies call for a salad. Spicy watercress with sweet mandarin orange makes a light, refreshing summer salad. And a winter pear and kale salad with cranberry balsamic dressing is an excellent hearty winter edition.

For dessert, go with something light like a vanilla bean panna cotta or mini fresh fruit tarts!

What wines pair with Garlic and Herb Bottom Round Roast?

A red wine is really the best pairing for roast beef. The classic is a Cabernet Sauvignon. 

I went with a rich, earthy Syrah, the 2019 Les Vignes d’à Côté Syrah. It’s heavy on the sweet black currant and berry flavor with a very pretty violet note as well. The decent amount of acidity helps cut through all the butter you just smeared on your beef.

Other great red wine options include: Côtes du Rhône, Merlot, Malbec. Sangiovese, Rioja