How to Make a Medium-Rare Prime Rib

I am not an expert chef when it comes to prime rib. In fact, before this week I had never made one myself. Of course this sent me on a mad search online to find the best way to make prime rib. It’s an expensive piece of meat, and I did not want to ruin it, so I read a lot of recommendations. Many suggested using salt and other spices, and others said to keep it simple and just coat the roast in butter. I decided to go with simple because well, it’s simple! I also bought into the suggestion that coating the roast in salt would actually draw the moisture out of the roast. I don’t know if it’s true, but it made sense to me. My prime rib turned out really well, so I wanted to share the technique I used for other moms like me who don’t know what to do.

The first step was to let the roast get to room temperature before starting. I used a roasting pan without a rack and placed the prime rib with the bone down. Some sites recommended putting butter on the cut ends only, while others suggesting coating the whole roast. I coated the whole roast but only spread the butter thin where there was already fat.

I set the oven to 450, which means the smoke detector was going off without even putting any food inside, but it was a necessary step. Searing the meat at 450 for twenty minutes helps lock the juices inside. This is how it looked after searing.

After searing I turned the oven down to 325 and put a meat thermometer in the thickest part of the roast. There is no specific time that is appropriate to cook your roast, but there is a specific temperature. My goal was to remove the prime rib from the oven once it reached 110 degrees, so that I would have a medium rare roast.

My roast was about 4lbs, and it reached 110 degrees in about 90 minutes. I took it out of the oven, covered it in foil and let it sit for 30 minutes before slicing. The temperature is supposed to increase by another ten degrees while it sits and I think it did because it was exactly how I hoped it would be … medium rare (maybe a little closer to rare).

It tasted great and everyone over six enjoyed it. As for cutting the beef, I first removed the bone by cutting along it, and then I used an electric knife to cut thin slices. It’s a little too pricey for me to make a regular basis, but I’m confident that I can rest assured that if I buy it again, I will know how to make it!