Top Round Roast is a lean cut of beef roasted in the oven just until tender. This easy recipe includes potatoes and veggies for a complete meal. Any leftovers are great in a sandwich or to add protein to a salad.
Hi friends,
I’m back! There hasn’t been a new post the last few weeks because we just moved to our new house. It’s very exciting! Nothing is unpacked, and the to-do lists keep getting longer. But we hope to stay in this house a long time and really make it our own.
Luckily, I have one last recipe that was photographed at our old house to share with you today. This dinner is simple, healthy, and easy. I know a roast beef recipe may feel a bit wintry when a lot of the internet is moving on to spring. But since it’s still very much winter for a lot of us, I decided to post now rather than waiting until next winter.
What is Top Round Roast?
Top Round is a lean and somewhat tough cut of meat from the rear leg of the cow. It’s much more affordable than something like, say, prime rib. In other words, you can eat it for a weeknight dinner and don’t have to wait for a special occasion. Due to the lack of fat marbling the meat, it’s easy to dry out a top round roast if you overcook it. Round steaks are often braised or slow-cooked to keep them tender. I actually like to cut a top round roast into chunks and use it in stews like Beef Bourguignon because I prefer it to a more fatty chuck roast.
However, when you make roast beef with top round roast, cooked to medium, it stays juicy and tender. Reheating leftovers can dry it out, so I’ve been eating the leftover roast beef cold either on a salad or on a roll. Top Round Roast is definitely my favorite cut for roast beef.
Ingredients for Top Round Roast
Here are some of the main ingredients for this dinner. That’s a 4 ½ pound top round roast. Pick out the roast with the most fat on it. Even if you don’t want to eat the fat on top, some of it will render onto the meat while roasting, adding flavor. My supermarket also sells some half-roasts, if you want to make a smaller portion.
There’s also red onion, carrots, asparagus, kosher salt, coarse ground black pepper, and fresh thyme. Thyme is one of my favorite herbs to go with beef. I decided to limit the seasonings to salt, pepper, and thyme to keep it simple. These three add plenty of flavor on their own. You can add other spices or swap out other herbs for the thyme based on what you like and what you have on hand.
How to Make Top Round Roast
This is a really easy recipe that doesn’t need many step-by-step photos. While the oven is preheating, season your roast. Place it in the roasting pan with the side that has the most fat facing up.
Start out roasting the meat at 425 degrees to get it nice and browned, then reduce the temperature to 325 after 15 minutes. When you lower the heat, all the vegetables except for the asparagus go into the oven.
The veggies are tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper.
The asparagus gets added for the last 20 minutes.
How Long to Cook Top Round Roast in the Oven
To start, roast the meat for 15 minutes at 425 degrees. After that, leave the roast in the oven and lower the temperature to 325 degrees. From here it will take about 1 hour to reach medium-rare. I’ve made both a 2 ½ pound and a 4 ½ pound roast, and I found they both took almost the same time. I think this is because of the shape of the cut. It’s sort of like a long rectangle, and the full-size roast is longer but not wider, so the inside of the meat isn’t really further away from the surface, if that makes sense.
The roast you see in the pictures here was removed from the oven at an internal temperature of 125 degrees.
Make sure to let the roast rest for 15 minutes before slicing. It will continue to cook while resting. Spoon the pan drippings over the sliced beef—it’s the best topping!
Looking for other healthy protein and veggie dinners you can quickly prep and get in the oven? Check out my Roast Salmon with Fennel or Slow Roast Chicken.
If you make this recipe, please give the recipe a rating and/or leave a comment. I’d love to hear from you!
Top Round Roast
Top Round Roast is a lean cut of beef roasted in the oven just until tender. This easy recipe includes potatoes and veggies for a complete meal. Any leftovers are great in a sandwich or to add protein to a salad.
Ingredients
- 1 (4-5 pound) top round roast
- 1 tablespoon kosher salt
- 1 1/2 teaspoons coarse ground black pepper
- 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves (or 1 teaspoon dried)
- 3 pounds small white potatoes, halved
- 12 ounces carrots, peeled
- 1 red onion, cut into chunks
- salt and pepper
- 4 tablespoons olive oil, divided
- 2 pounds asparagus, trimmed
Instructions
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Spray a roasting pan or baking dish with cooking oil spray.
Pat beef dry with paper towels. Rub 1 tablespoon kosher salt, 1 ½ teaspoons black pepper, and thyme all over roast. Place in prepared pan with the side with any extra fat facing up.
Roast in 425 degree oven for 15 minutes.
Meanwhile, prepare vegetables. Spray a sheet pan or baking dish with cooking oil spray. Add potatoes, carrots, and onion. Season with salt and pepper and toss with 3 tablespoons olive oil. Toss asparagus with remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil and salt and pepper and set aside.
After beef has been roasting for 15 minutes, turn oven temperature down to 325 degrees. Leave beef in oven. Put the vegetables (excluding asparagus) in the oven. Roast beef and vegetables for about 1 hour.
When there is 20 minutes left on the timer, add the asparagus to the baking dish with the other vegetables. The asparagus will take 15-20 minutes, depending how thick it is.
The beef is done when it reaches internal temperature of 120 degrees Fahrenheit for rare, 125 for medium-rare, or 135 for medium. (Take it out of the oven at this temperature - the meat will continue cooking while resting.) Vegetables are done when tender.
Let rest 15 minutes before slicing.
Bon Appétit!
Making this tonight ..looks super yummy and pretty easy!
BTW ada your pictures are super cute
Loved the meat and vegetables.
An hour overcooked a 3 lb roast for me. I guess my oven is much hotter? Idk. I don’t have a meat thermometer but it normally doesn’t matter. I like meat on the rare side and it’s pretty easy usually to get that without one.
The recipe called for a 4 to 5 pound roast so yes it would be too long for a 3 pound one
I mess it up all the time
I bought a 6 pound round roast
Please tell me how Long do I cook it
Please tell me Tye initial temp for how long
And then what Temp and how long
6! Pound round roast
I let you know how it comes out. Thank you for posting
I tried cooking this tonight, nothing turned out, tried adjusting the temperature and still dry and hardly cooked..
We were both very disappointed and ended up wasting a $30 roast and ordered a pizza instead…
Sorry to read your experience trying to bake a roast did not pan out for you. You say it was dried out but yet not cooked. You know those two descriptions don’t fit together very well, dontcha now!?0
Delicious! Bet some people forgot to turn down the temperature if it’s dry AND not cooked Lol for us it was fantastic
“still dry and hardly cooked”
Too dumb to reuse the meat in a stew or something
You’re calling him “dumb”…?
Clearly someone who is needing an actual recipe just to place a basic hunk of cow with salt and pepper into a hot oven , is an inexperienced cook, to say the least. No need to call them “dumb” just bc they’re inexperienced cooks.
I made this roast for our dinner this evening and was totally satisfied with the results. After a hour and fifteen minutes the roast was medium rare and tasted delicious. The roasted vegetables, done at the same time as
the roast, made it a complete meal done in the oven. Wonderful way to warm the kitchen on a windy, wintery night.
I did add four thick slices of raw onion and put them under the roast when I placed the roast in the pan. It elevates it somewhat and the onions were delicious.
I had a 4.5 lb roast I did the temperatures as instructed 3 lbs of the roast were still mooing. I and even the celery was under cooked. I was so embarrassed serving this to my parents. I’m going to try and recook the 3 lbs with a different recipe.
This was excellent! The rub was so delicious. Everything turned out perfect – an easy oven meal.
Delicious with the fewer seasonings. Made without the vegetables, but still tasted great.
I found the recipe worked quite well. I learned not to overcook
the Top Round, so I took it out when the thermometer
read 140 degrees. It came very juicy and tasty.. The vegetables came out very
nicely but I knew I could cook them more even after I took the meat out of the oven. .Thank you.
You do such reliable recipes! I rely on them all and all the time..Thank you!