Rather than painstakingly restore all of our various Prime Rib essays, we've consolidated them right HERE.
Simple & Attainable Perfection. You can do this. At home. Really!
To most of America, Labor Day marks the opening week of the new NFL season. To your Grumpy Old Mansplainer, however, the earlier sunsets and crisp breezes betoken the advent of PRIME RIB SEASON! Before delving deeply into the details of preparing great Prime Rib at home, we can succinctly summarize the process (or rather, ONE of the processes) as follows:
Formulate your general battle plan-- sourcing, kitchen equipment, etc.
Buy the best roast you can afford. (Freeze it, if necessary.)
If frozen, start thawing it the night before your dinner in a large pot of water.
Starting early in the morning, do the "Score, Salt, & Fan" treatment for a few hours.
Slather with tallow or oil, then briefly blast it in a very hot oven.
Roast it slowly at a low temperature to 120ºF internal temperature (or as desired.)
Slather again with tallow or oil, then blast it again in a very hot oven.
Let it rest while you plate or present the side dishes.
Slice your roast on a proper cutting board, capturing the juices.
Serve it with an appropriate sauce, perhaps incorporating the captured juices.
And then enjoy both your creation itself and the acclaim from friends and/or family.
That being said, we now explore the particulars:
I. Why Prime Rib?
The short answer? Because Prime Rib is worth doing and eminently doable.
The long answer? Read on.
As soon as Thanksgiving dessert is finished, many a wise family chef is already contemplating the logistics of Christmas dinner. Unlike Thanksgiving, Christmas in America has no pre-ordained dinner menu; to wit, a good number of families will repeat Thanksgiving's roast turkey, while a small number, perhaps those with Continental traditions, will venture elsewhere in the avian realm and prepare capon or goose. For others, a juicy pork loin roast or a smoky ham works just fine. However, those intrepid kitchen warriors whose loved ones crave the incomparable deliciousness of juicy, slow-roasted beef will choose to tackle Prime Rib– the ultimate show-stopper of holiday feasts, and, to many, the apex of fine home cookery.
Though most commonly associated with Christmas, roasted Prime Rib makes a perfectly suitable main course for a table-ful of family and/or friends whenever the weather is cool enough to sharpen our appetites for rich food. And Prime Rib is something of a staple in upscale American restaurants, often exclusively as a weekend evening special and served with a side of Yorkshire Pudding (HERE is Gordon Ramsay's version) along with a little extra panache and flourish. To the uninitiated, that perfect slab of delicious meat-- its juicy flesh a uniformly rosy pink, ringed by a bark-like crust and slathered with thin, dark sauce-- looks too magnificent to even consider attempting at home. Think again, Dear Reader.
Here at DANNY'S TABLE we've been tinkering with Prime Rib cookery since our inception two years ago, testing many different meat sources and multiple cooking techniques. It has been a delicious (and expensive) learning curve, and now we can all reap the benefits of our efforts. With a combination of knowledgeable shopping and proven, scientifically-based preparation, the result of your efforts will be not only reliably successful, but also superior in quality to the prime rib served in most any restaurant... at least this side of a hundred bucks per serving.
Please stay with me... this is going to take some lengthier-than-usual Grumpy Old Mansplaining, but I promise it will be worth it.
II. What exactly IS Prime Rib?
In (supposedly) plain English, the adjective "prime" can connote either "main," or "first," or sometimes "best"... and also, on occasion, some combination of these. In the realm of beef, the term "prime" is just such a multi-tasker, almost as if intentionally causing confusion. In beef's qualitative hierarchy, for instance, "Prime" is an official USDA grade, indicating the tops in flavor due to its highest fat content. Then again we see in the diagram below the word "primal" as in the "primal cuts" of beef, the octet of the initial ("first" and/or "main") subdivisions of a slaughtered steer--
Prime... primal... primary... primitive... don't worry-- we'll figure it all out.
This map above is worth a moment of study, if only for increased general awareness about the food we eat. If this steer in its entirety were a nation, then these eight primal cuts would be the sovereign states, which are further divided into “sub-primal cuts” (counties) that, in turn, are divided into “portion cuts” (kind of like towns.) Thus the “Prime Rib” that we take such delight in roasting and eating is a portion cut from the "Ribeye Roll" sub-primal cut, which in turn is taken from the "Rib" primal cut. The upshot of all this? "Prime Rib" is the name of a cut of beef for us end users... albeit a cut that is not necessarily prime GRADE.
For better or worse, FAT equals FLAVOR.
SO... PRIME RIB ISN'T ACTUALLY “PRIME?”
Maybe, but usually not. Only 2% of all beef sold in America-- including Prime Rib-- is graded "Prime." “Prime Rib” is the name of the portion cut in question, and “prime” is a UDSA-defined grade of beef as shown in the chart above. The grade of the Prime Rib roasts generally available for retail purchase can range from Select to Choice to Prime, denoting an increasing percentage of marbled fat and thus better flavor. "Prime" is the fattiest, and therefore tastiest and tenderest (if not the healthiest.) Prime-grade Prime Rib also costs more, but in my experience it is well worth the extra money because the melting marbled fat luxuriously moisturizes the meat from within. And, worthy of noting-- I have yet to find a restaurant that actually serves prime-grade Prime Rib, which is one more reason why YOU can make this dish better at home.
SO MUCH FOR "PRIME." WHAT ABOUT THE "RIB?"
While we humans are blessed by our Creator with 12 pairs of ribs, Bovinae (cattle) have 13 pairs. However, only pairs # 6 through # 12 (counting from front to back) constitute the rib primal. (Ribs # 1-5 are considered part of the chuck primal, while rib # 13 is included in the loin primal.) This leaves us with 7 ribs, which is exactly what comprises a full-sized Prime Rib portion cut that you might see in the meat case at Costco or The Restaurant Depot.
And finally, one more map is in order-- that of a cross-section of Prime Rib, which, like its identical twin, the ribeye steak, has several somewhat distinct parts:
The FILET (Longissimus dorsi) is the loin muscle, Prime Rib's prime raison d'être; the TAIL is the deliciously fatty forkful that is sometimes trimmed away; and the crescent-shaped RIB CAP (Spinalis dorsi, also known as the "DECKEL") is regarded by a great many beef lovers as the single most delicious morsel on the entire steer.
So now, Dear Readers-- armed with all this knowledge, let's go shopping.
III. How to Buy Prime Rib
An artisan butcher friend once explained to me how every single portion cut of beef is unique, i.e., no two steaks are identical (though they may be mirror copies, one from each side.) Accordingly, since the full 7-rib portion cut of Prime Rib is so big, it stands to reason that the meat associated with rib # 12 differs greatly from that of rib # 6… just as the last day of autumn is usually quite different from the first. And how it differs is rather significant for our purposes here.
The Chuck End (left) and the Loin End (right) from the same 7-rib section. The Loin End clearly contains WAY more of the delicious loin muscle, and only slightly less of the deckel.
Because a whole 7-rib roast is too much meat for a typical nuclear family to cook and consume, the retail meat industry tends to divide the whole 7-rib section of Prime Rib in two-- one piece is comprised of the front-most 4 ribs (# 6 through # 9) and is known as the “second-cut” or the "chuck end," and the other piece is the rear-most 3-rib section (ribs # 10 through # 12) and is called the “first-cut” or "loin end." They differentiate these two sections for a very good reason– the second cut contains less of the highly desirable loin muscle than does the first cut, as seen in the photo above. Furthermore, you will NEVER see them actually labeled as "first cut" and "second cut;" nor, in my experience, will you ever find anyone working behind a meat counter who is even vaguely familiar with these terms. (That's why you have ME. Just sayin.')
So what shall we do about this "first cut" and "second cut" business? Well, for one thing, the savvy home chef might well consider feeding a large gathering by purchasing TWO first-cut roasts rather than ONE whole 7-rib roast because the result will be more uniform from portion to portion and also superior in flavor and texture. (Some argue that the higher proportion of fat in the chuck end makes it juicier; we still prefer the loin end for its higher percentage of loin, noting all those luscious ribeye steaks that are cut from the loin end. In fact, if you ever find yourself with an extra Prime Rib loin-end roast, you can easily cut it into steaks and then wrap & freeze them individually for grilling season. That's what stores do.)
FEED AND BREED
One often sees "Angus" and "Certified Angus" proudly indicated on supermarket beef packaging. “Angus” is a specific breed of beef cattle, first brought to America from Scotland in 1873. The name became a familiar marketing buzzword after the formation of the Certified Angus Beef Brand in 1978. And yet, truth be told, 85% of American beef cattle have Angus bloodlines… and what matters far more than a particular steer’s genetics is how it is raised and what it is fed. Back when my bride Andrea & I were team-driving the entire USA, I was sometimes awakened during her driving shift by the overpoweringly acrid stench of a cattle feed lot some 10 miles ahead, with its suffering occupants confined knee-deep in their own excrement, fed a horrific diet, and shot full of powerful drugs (e.g., antibiotics and hormones) to keep them medically viable and their meat chemically tender until their trip to the slaughterhouse.
This is how MOST supermarket beef is raised.
DID SOMEONE MENTION "GRASS-FED?"
While all weaned cattle spend their first few months on a diet of grasses, almost all of them are then "finished" on corn and/or other grains in order to quickly fatten them for slaughter a month before their first birthdays... a finishing process that usually takes place in a feedlot of some sort. Furthermore, while some cattle mature in far better conditions than others, the truth remains that cattle are not designed by nature to digest grains... and therefore ANY grain-finishing of cattle is, at the very least, sub-optimal on some level.
I am personally a big fan of 100% grass-fed beef because it is not only healthier but also more flavorful-- if, perhaps, a tad less tender. In fact, one of my favorite go-to Prime Rib roasts is the Boneless 100% Grass-Fed Prime Grade Prime Rib from Holy Grail Steak Co. (Often out of stock, but keep a sharp eye for its return.) But the more assertive (or, to be honest, often GAMEY) flavor of grass-fed beef isn't to everyone's taste... so it's a good thing that there are several sources of somewhat responsibly grain-finished beef out there.
Influenced, no doubt, by the scrumptious, fork-tender mouthfuls of perfectly roasted grain-finished Prime Rib that I've enjoyed in my lifetime, I've managed to make my peace with this particular conflict between healthy and tasty... life is short, after all, and we're all gonna die anyway, right? So I thoroughly enjoy my occasional high-quality and responsibly-raised grain-finished steaks, and I also use 100% grass-fed beef in my chili and braises. That makes me feel good (or at least good enough) about this issue. Whatever one's religious or spiritual beliefs, an important concept to absorb from this issue is that of balancing one's guilt and sense of altruism with our God-given right to the pursuit of happiness.
WHAT ABOUT “DRY-AGED” PRIME RIB?
Dry-aging makes for especially delicious beef by allowing the meat’s natural enzymatic activity to tenderize it while making the flavor more complex. One can also find dry-aged prime rib roasts, such as this from Allen Brothers, a company I haven’t actually yet tried but one that enjoys a stellar reputation among people I fully trust. Now, dry-aging– as the name implies– does in fact make meat a little drier… which can be a bit of a problem with roasts, not the least of which is a comparatively paltry yield of delicious pan nectar for your au jus. All things considered, I don't recommend paying the exorbitant tariff for a dry-aged Prime Rib roast... unless you happen to find one on sale after the holidays that you can freeze and/or cut up for steaks.
...AND WAGYU BEEF?
And then there’s Wagyu beef. Contrary to popular (mis)perception, “Wagyu” is NOT a specific breed– indeed, the name translates to simply “Japanese cattle” and applies to four different Japanese breeds, which in turn are each a genetic mish-mash of stock imported from China nearly 2,000 years ago and those brought from Europe in the late 1800’s. That being said, in Japan as well as here in the US, the name “Wagyu” specifically connotes beef purposefully raised and fed to achieve superior tenderness as well a decadently high fat content, like this–
The Japanese manage to get marbling like this.
American Wagyu is beyond-prime rich, but never quite THIS rich.
Needless to say, whether Japanese or American, with all that fat a little Wagyu goes a long way… and yes, Wagyu prime rib is available. Snake River Farms offers a 3-Bone American Wagyu "Gold Label" Prime Rib Roast (10-12 lb.) for a whopping $449.00. After you’re done choking on your wine, consider that meat thus richly marbled would satisfy perhaps TEN normal appetites @ $45/person, and that at the Wagyu level of play the aforementioned distinction between chuck end and loin end becomes moot... and then check out what a decent restaurant charges for prime rib of less-than-transparent grade and origin. For example, my favorite local dining establishment commands $42 for prime rib as a banquet option and also as a weekend dinner special... not too far off from the Wagyu, really.
And speaking of Snake River Farms, they've recently introduced a new line of products. SRF has long graded their Wagyu beef as either Black (significantly richer than prime-grade) or Gold (WAY richer than prime.) They now offer Wagyu "Silver," which is equivalent to prime grade in fat content and notably less expensive than Black and Gold. That means we can now get Wagyu flavor at a lower price ($249 for a 5-lb. boneless roast) with an arguably more roast-friendly fat content... Win-Win! (For more detailed information on Wagyu beef, check out the American Wagyu Association.)
THEREIN LIES THE RIB (AS IN BONE-IN VS. BONELESS)
Bone-in, or boneless? The experts are divided, with the majority of them suggesting that roasting Prime Rib with the bones in place is preferable. I disagree for several reasons:
You pay full Prime Rib price-per-pound for bones that you cannot eat;
The bones prevent you from evenly salting (and/or seasoning) your roast;
A boneless Prime Rib roast cooks more quickly at any given temperature:
A boneless Prime Rib roast cooks more evenly;
A bone-in roast pretty much dictates one rib per person, which is usually way too much meat for all but the hungriest guests, unless you de-bone it AFTER roasting;
De-boning AFTER roasting is a hot and messy procedure in a busy holiday kitchen;
And finally, one can put those bones to MUCH better use in sauce-making.
(More on that later.)
This isn't supermodel plastic surgery, so don't over-think it... just cut the bones away from the rest of the roast, leaving as much meat as possible with the roast. You'll likely read and hear suggestions to tie the meat back to the bones for roasting. We suggest instead that you wrap and freeze them for a future batch of great beef stock. (More on that later.)
So, I highly recommend looking for a boneless Prime Rib roast. If you find a bone-in roast that seems otherwise perfect, ask if the store butcher can remove them for you and then bring them home and freeze them. If you have to perform this surgery yourself, the procedure is not especially difficult.
A boneless Prime Rib roast lends itself to elegantly thin slices... an
especially good thing when serving an ultra-rich Wagyu Prime Rib.
Armed with all the foregoing, let's finally get around to the actual shopping. And not to disparage anyone's favorite local supermarket, but it is definitely worth trusting something as special as top-quality, responsibly-raised Prime Rib to a company that specializes in exactly such things. Here are a few online Prime Rib sources that I've personally tried, and that I am happy to recommend:
A legendary premium meat supplier and American Wagyu pioneer, Snake River Farms is an especially good source for Prime Rib and other holiday roasts. Double R Ranch is a sibling company (accessible from Snake River's site) that offers high-quality choice and prime beef.
A sibling company to the wine broker de Négoce, the Holy Grail Steak Company offers fantastic steaks as well as other meats and even some seafoods. One of my go-to Prime Rib roasts comes from their grass-fed prime-grade portfolio, and their Mangalitsa ham is mouth-wateringly fantastic.
Talk about role reversal— how about BEEF Bacon and PORK Brisket? We are proud to include Porter Road among the small handful of online meat purveyors that we happily recommend. Whether beef, pork, or chicken, Porter Road has plenty of pasture-raised, hormone- and antibiotic-free options.
A Miami-based online butcher shop, Meat N' Bone offers an affordable Wagyu-Angus crossbreed ribeye (AND a spendy-but-spectacular Wagyu-Angus Prime Rib) as part of a broad array of products ranging from elk roasts to alligator tenderloin.
US Wellness Meats/Grassland Beef was founded in 2000 in Monticello, Missouri (pop. 98) by visionary farmers who saw that big-business cattle-raising practices were taking a toll on our animals and our health. By returning to rotational grazing practices that are both good for the planet and good for our cattle, they led the way in introducing a new generation to the unmatched taste, tenderness, and healthiness of grass-fed beef. US Wellness Meats/Grassland Beef has become our go-to source for the Tasmanian-raised grass-fed beef rib bones that we use to make our "Faux Jus." They are also a great company to deal with, one that can rightly boast customer service as great as the products they sell.
Cattle ranching as it can be, from the Snake River Farms website.
IV. How to Cook Prime Rib
If you google Prime Rib recipes, you'll find a downright bewildering array of conflicting recommendations, including cooking temperatures all over the dial. I've already tried them all so you don't have to, keeping the good ideas and discarding the others. By the way, you will often see recommendations for roasting your Prime Rib for "X Minutes per Pound." DO NOT SLAVISHLY FOLLOW SUCH INSTRUCTIONS! For one thing, a full Prime Rib (7 ribs long) weighs a lot more than a 3-rib cut of the same diameter, yet they would require almost identical cooking times. To determine when your roast is done cooking, use your thermometer, not your clock. More on this point later.
To start, let's get our equipment and supplies in order.
INGREDIENTS:
Boneless Prime Rib roast, tied with butcher's twine, if desired
Kosher Salt
Beef Tallow or Olive Oil ( Pure-grade, NOT Extra Virgin)
Two essentials for proper Prime Rib cookery-- a stainless steel roasting pan & rack (by Hestan.)
and a top-quality oven-safe digital monitoring thermometer (by Thermoworks.)
COOKING EQUIPMENT:
Stainless roasting pan w/ an elevated rack
Oven-safe digital monitoring thermometer
Large frying/sauté pan, preferably iron
Large Tongs, Oven Mitts
A wine glass with your favorite wine in it (optional)
STEP 1-- The Thaw & The "Score, Salt, & Fan"
If your roast is frozen, thaw it overnight in a large pot of water (assuming, of course, that it is sealed in a waterproof plastic package; if not, you'll need to thaw it in your fridge for a couple of days.) If you are thawing it in your fridge, coat it with kosher salt. If you thaw it in the pot of water, then on the morning of your feast give it a cross-hatch of shallow slices with your sharpest knife ("scoring"), rub it with kosher salt, and then position the salted roast on an elevated roasting rack in front of a fan. This will accomplish several tasks-- it will help form a crust, it will warm the roast to room temperature, and the fan will keep your cat away. (You're on your own with the family dog.)
String Theory-- should you tie up your roast? It's not absolutely necessary, but it helps to keep gravity from flattening the roast in the early stages of cooking, and thus helps it cook a little more evenly.
Just make sure you use real butcher's twine, not something that will melt in the heat.
After the Score, Salt, & Fan Process, the exterior is dry, translucent, and a little tacky to the touch.
STEP 2-- The First Sear
Why sear the roast? NOT to "seal in the juices," as unscientific folklore often suggests, but rather to help form the delicious crust. As meat is roasting, its exterior undergoes what is known as the Maillard Reaction, a complex interaction of cellular sugars and proteins that begins at just under 300ºF and should NOT be confused with Caramelization, which involves sugars alone and occurs at a slightly higher temperature. The Maillard reaction yields not only a wonderful color and crunch to your prime rib’s exterior, it also produces the delicious yet hard-to-describe umami flavors that we never realized how much we crave. (The sauces Soy, Worcestershire, and Marinara are all umami bombs.) That salted spell in front of the fan contributes mightily to the Maillard Reaction, which works much better on dry surfaces than on wet ones.
That being said, we will be doing the long, slow roasting at a temperature well below 300ºF, so we'll need to assist the Maillard Reaction/crust formation with a little high heat. Some recipes call for searing your roast with high heat before the long, slow roasting, while others call for searing after roasting (a.k.a. the REVERSE sear.) We recommend doing BOTH. And some recipes perplexingly call for searing the roast in a hot pan on the stove-top... something I've found geometrically impossible given the roughly cylindrical shape of the roast and the two-dimensional plane of the typical cooking pan. You can and should lightly sear the two flat ends of the roast in a hot pan (an IRON pan is preferable for its thermal inertia) but we'll then give the whole roast a brief browning in a very hot oven. If your oven has a convection option, this is the time to use it, set at475Fº. If not, just crank up your regular oven to 475ºF. When it reaches full temperature, scorch your roast 5 minutes, turn it over and give it 5 more, then turn off the oven and immediately remove the roast.
STEP 3-- The Long, Slow Roast/ Double Blast (LSRDB)
The lowest possible setting on my oven is 170ºF. Not only have I successfully roasted Prime Rib at this temperature, I also once performed an unusual experiment-- I wrapped a frozen-solid Prime Rib in foil and gave it an all-day at LSR at 170ºF until it reached 120ºF internal temperature. After a finishing hot blast it came out perfect. Our takeaway? As long as we roast Prime Rib at a temperature above 150ºF-- the average melting point of beef fat-- you can't go too low. However, roasting it a high temperature-- anything over 300ºF, as recommended by a surprising number of celebrity chefs and cooking websites-- has TWO drawbacks:
Roasts continue cooking on the inside after being removed from the oven, and the higher your roasting temperature, the more the temperature will rise after removal... which makes over-cooking more of a risk;
And worse-- the higher the roasting temperature, the more unevenly the meat cooks, as shown in the first two examples below:
The first two roasts were cooked at a high temperature, resulting in a noticeably steep gradient of done-ness– from well-done gray on the outside to perfectly pink in the center. Their crust formation, however, is fantastic. The LSRDB example on the far right-- roasted at a mere 170ºF-- demonstrates perfectly even done-ness at the expense of a great crust.
Now, to be fair, there are two ADVANTAGES to roasting at a temperature at or above 300ºF--
The aforementioned Maillard Reaction kicks into high gear above 300ºF, resulting in delicious crusting as in the above two examples;
And, of course, roasting at a higher temperature will cook your Prime Rib faster.
Furthermore, for some mysterious reason the prized deckel section of this cut doesn't seem to lose any of its deliciousness when cooked beyond pink. So-- if you like your meat pink but definitely not red in the middle... if you lust after great crust... and/or you are on a tight schedule to get dinner on the table, by all means feel free to roast at a higher temperature.
Our recommended LSRDB oven temperature is 195ºF. (Interestingly, the numerous recipes I studied for this essay suggested temperatures ranging from 180º to 250º for this low-and-slow phase.) 195ºF is low enough to guarantee even cooking, yet high enough to allow some wiggle room if you need to speed up or slow down the cooking for your target temperature to coincide with your scheduled dinner time.
After scorching both ends in the frying pan, position your Prime Rib on a roasting rack that affords generous air circulation all around it. Roast at 475ºF for 5 minutes, flip it over, and repeat. Remove the roast and re-set the oven temperature to 195ºF. (You might want to leave the oven door open for a few minutes as the oven sufficiently cools.)
Thrust the probe of your digital monitoring thermometer into the thick middle of the meat. Continue to cook (at oven temperature of 195ºF) until the meat reaches an internal temperature of 115ºF for rare or 120ºF for medium-rare. and then turn off the oven with the roast in it (don't open the door!) and allow the internal temperature to climb to 120º (for rare) or 125º for (medium-rare.) Remove from the oven and tent with foil for a few minutes.
Now crank your oven back up to 475º, and then, only when you’ve hit 475º and not a minute before, slather the roast with oil or tallow and put it back in the oven for long enough to achieve your desired color. You might want even more crust, but maybe not at the expense of cooking the interior very far past your personal point of perfection.
Tent it with foil for a few minutes before slicing.
If you are pressed for time and/or favor a thick and crunchy crust over uniform done-ness, by all means roast your Prime Rib at a Maillard-friendly 300ºF as follows:
THE "GENERAL CRUSTER" (GC) METHOD:
You can give it a hot blast before and/or after the 300ºF roasting... or you can skip the blasts and simply roast your Prime Rib at 300ºF to an internal temperature of 110-115ºF and then remove it from the oven and tent with foil. The internal temperature will continue to rise. If this sounds simple, that's because it is.
Note that we haven't even hinted at how much time it will take for your Prime Rib roast to reach the target cooking temperature. That's because the cooking time depends on way too many factors (the diameter of the roast, your oven, etc.) for a precise answer. However, HERE is a page from www.beefitswhatsfordinner.com that includes a chart purporting to correlate weights and cook times in a 350ºF oven. For the LSRDB Method (at 195ºF) you should double their time estimates; for the GC Method (at 300ºF) add half an hour. I recommend using this only as an approximate guide for planning purposes. Your digital thermometer should be the final judge of when your roast is done cooking.
One more thing-- before attempting a full-blown Prime Rib dinner party, I highly recommend doing a practice version. You'll gain immeasurable confidence, and the leftovers will be delicious either re-heated or cold.
V. Sauce for Prime Rib
Matching sauces with a dish is like matching two people to form a good couple-- sometimes they seemingly have nothing in common and yet complement each other to great effect, while other couples seem to have so much overlap that they wear each other's shirts and finish each other's sentences. Accordingly, Sauce for Prime Rib generally takes two very different forms: for contrast, we have Horseradish Cream Sauce, and for close affinity we have "Au Jus" (literally "with juice") usually (but not always) fashioned from the roasting pan drippings.
Horseradish Sauce from The Spruce Eats, and Ultimate Au Jus from The Daring Gourmet.
I prefer au jus, or at least a variation thereof that I fashion from (flourless) demi-glace. (See The Demi-Glace Crisis.) For some fabulous instruction on such sauce sorcery, please also check out the Sauce Bordelaise Recipe at a wonderful blog called THE JOHAN.
VI. Serving Suggestions
Make no mistake-- when Prime Rib is on the menu, everything else-- the appetizers, side dishes, dessert, and even the wine-- plays a minor supporting role. This makes sense for two reasons: ONE, no one is driving in from New Jersey for your mashed potatoes; and TWO, Prime Rib is sumptuously rich and also usually served in large portions, leaving little room or appetite for rich and/or complicated accompaniments.
RECOMMENDED SIDE DISHES:
Mashed Potatoes or Roasted Potatoes
A Simply-Prepared Green Vegetable (broccoli and green beans are two favorites.)
NOT RECOMMENDED:
Scalloped Potatoes with Gruyère
Green Bean & Cream of Mushroom Casserole
Candied Yams or Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallows
Macaroni & Cheese
You get the idea.
WINE WITH PRIME RIB?
Matching wine with Prime Rib is easy... any red wine you love should be perfectly fine. That being said, one should be mindful that the big, strapping Cabernet Sauvignon that boldly stands up to the sizzling char gracing a paleo-manly-man grilled ribeye might be a tad overpowering for Prime Rib's more subtle charms, as would anything with an alcohol content much in excess of 14.5%.
BUT SINCE YOU'VE ASKED...
Prime Rib is generally served at a good-sized gathering, so it follows that the wine you serve should be a crowd-pleaser... something that requires no explanation or geeky analysis to be appreciated. I like to pair Prime Rib with fruity and full-bodied Californian Pinot Noir because it is easy to love, even for folks who usually drink whites, and its light body plays well with the gentle flavors of slowly-cooked meat. And I really like (gasp!) MERLOT with Prime Rib, for a number of reasons:
Merlot went way out of fashion among wine cognoscenti two decades ago due to The Sideways Effect, but some of the world's finest Merlot vineyards remain under cultivation by top California and Washington State wineries even as other varietal wines have overtaken it in popularity and sales. And because of this very market shift, great west coast, old-vine Merlot is available at reasonable prices while connoisseurs clamor for the triple-figure Cabs and low-production Pinots. (Pro-tip: although Merlot is typically softer and earlier-maturing than Cabernet Sauvignon, really good versions thereof nonetheless benefit greatly from a day of aeration. We recently enjoyed a 2018 bottling from the Walla Walla region of Washington, and even with six years of barrel and bottle age it still tasted better on Day 2.)
For more on Merlot, please check out LISA, THE MERLOT GIRL (The essay, not the girl.) And if you've made it this far, Dear Reader, I thank you. Please feel free to contact me directly for some honest and free advice on your next Prime Rib dinner.
Appreciatively,
DannyM.
NOTES:
The best Prime Rib sauce I've ever made came from a Herculean effort-- I made super-concentrated veal stock from 50 lbs. of roasted veal bones and 5 gallons of spring water; I made super-concentrated beef stock from 30 lbs. of roasted ribs and spring water... those same bones that I recommended removing from a bone-in Prime Rib way above in this essay; and I made a batch of red wine beef stew from 6 lbs. of grass-fed beef chuck, carrots, celery, pre-browned onions, and two bottles of good red wine. I removed the beef from the beef stew for later use and roasted the remaining contents with a big smear of tomato paste. I then combined a quart each of the veal stock and beef stock and the roasted stew remains and simmered it with more red wine. I tweaked the final product with dashes of Worcestershire Sauce and coconut aminos, a good soy substitute.
Both Pinot Noir and Merlot taste approximately twice as good if served about 10 degrees cooler than room temperature. This is easily accomplished by placing the bottle in a bucket of cold tap water for 10-15 minutes.
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