Herb Crusted Prime Rib
on Dec 06, 2023, Updated Jan 29, 2024
Herb Crusted Prime Rib is such a tasty and rich beef dish. This super easy fancy dinner recipe is great for holidays and special occasions. Goes great with a side of The Best Mashed Potatoes and Garlic Roasted Green Beans– perfect for Christmas dinner this year!
Steak dinners are one of our go-tos for holiday dinners and all sorts of special occasions. Get some good sides to go with something like Filet Mignon and you’ve got a tasty dinner everyone’s going to love.
While we love filet and beef tenderloin, we do like to mix things up every now and then by using some different cuts of beef. We’ve done some tasty t-bone steaks and ribeyes before but we wanted to try making something a bit more special for Christmas dinner. Prime rib is a great, marbled cut of beef and you can make it even better by making it an Herb Crusted Prime Rib.
Garlic Herb Crusted Prime Rib takes all the rich, savory flavors of a tasty prime rib roast and wraps it all up in a delicious herb and garlic rub. You wouldn’t think a simple rub would have that much of an impact but it really helps elevate this into one of the best prime rib recipes you can find. You get rich marbled prime rib cooked to a perfect medium- or medium-rare if you like a little pink in your steak.
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Whatever doneness you prefer, you’ll want to give this Herbed Up Roast a try. It’s so easy to make for being such a nice and fancy looking steak dish. Perfect if you need a quick Christmas dinner or New Year’s meal!
Table of Contents
Why you’ll love this simple Herb Crusted Prime Rib recipe
- The best way to cook prime rib has got to be this high-heat then low-heat method. The high heat helps give our prime rib crust packed with flavor while the lower heat helps it come up to the perfect temperature nice and slow. Cooking low and slow helps get us perfect tender beef every time.
- Adding a quick garlic and herb rub is an easy way to add tons of extra flavor to what would be a pretty plain beef rib roast without it. Prime rib is good- don’t get us wrong- but it’s way better with a garlic and herb crust on it!
- We can’t say enough about the pan drippings and all the juices you’ll have left over after cooking this Herb Crusted Prime Rib. Even on their own, they work like a tasty gravy that tasted amazing on the mashed potatoes we had as a side. With a bit of extra work, you could easily turn your pan drippings into an even tastier pan sauce.
Herb Crusted Prime Rib Ingredients
To make Herb Crusted Prime Rib, you don’t need many extra ingredients outside of a basic prime rib recipe. To make the Best Prime Rib with an herb crust, here’s what you need to get:
- Beef Prime Rib – You’ll want to get a bone-in prime rib for this recipe. What we’re going to do is cut the ribs away from the roast before using something like butcher’s twine to tie roast back on to the rib rack. We’ll put instructions for this in the recipe and recipe card but if you ask your butcher at your grocery store or butcher shop to do this for you, they likely will. In case you’re having trouble finding prime rib, it might also be sold under the name “ribeye roast” or “standing rib roast.” You could use a boneless prime rib if you can not find bone in.
- Salt and Pepper – For best flavor, use kosher salt or a nice sea salt and freshly ground black pepper.
- Herbs – There’s a lot of herbs to choose from but, for this prime rib roast, we went with some fresh rosemary and fresh thyme leaves.
- Garlic – Minced garlic from the jar is fine here. You can also use garlic cloves.
- Olive Oil – No need to use any expensive or fancy olive oil here. You may even want to use a light olive oil since we’re going to be using some pretty high heat.
See recipe card for quantities.
How to make Prime Rib with Herb Crust
It’s pretty easy to make Herb Crusted Prime Rib- you might as well call it a “set it and forget it prime rib.” To make some for yourself, here’s all you have to do:
- Cut the rib rack off your prime rib and use kitchen string to tie the roast back onto the bones. Sprinkle salt all over roast and let sit at room temperature for 2-3 hours.
- Mix salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme, garlic, and olive oil together in a small bowl to make a wet rub. Pat roast dry before applying rub all over roast. Set on a cast iron skillet or roasting pan bone-side down and transfer to a 500 degree oven.
- Bake roast at 500 degrees for 15 minutes before reducing heat to 325 degrees. Allow to roast at 325 degrees for 1-2 hours or until desired doneness– i.e., 140 degrees internal temperature for medium. Remove from oven, tent with foil, and let rest for 30 minutes before cutting string and carving.
Substitutions
Herb Crusted Prime Rib is pretty simple to make with a short ingredients list, but there’s room to make substitutions if you need. Here’s a few substitutions you can give a shot:
- Prime Rib Roast – It’s hard to replace the prime rib in this recipe for pretty obvious reasons. Prime rib is a nice marbled cut of beef that can’t really be substituted. You can still follow this recipe with all other sorts of different beef roasts if you’d like. Beef tenderloin is a more expensive and tender cut but tri-tip roast might be less pricey while still being pretty marbled and tender. If you don’t mind pretty lean beef, you could also try sirloin tip roast.
- Herbs – Rosemary and thyme are a pair of reliable herbs when it comes to seasoning rich beef dishes like prime rib roast. Of course, you could sub out rosemary and thyme for all other sorts of herbs or rubs. One seasoning blend you can try is Montreal Steak Seasoning– we love this stuff!
- Olive Oil – Especially when paired with rosemary, thyme, and garlic, olive oil tastes great with prime rib. The problem with olive oil is that it’s not great for high-heat cooking, so you might want to mix it with a oil with a higher smoke point. Vegetable oil, canola oil, and grapeseed oil are good oils you can blend olive oil with if you don’t want to buy light olive oil.
Variations
We think you’re going to love our Herb Crusted Rib Roast recipe as it is. Still, if you want to mix things up or add more ingredients, there’s room to experiment. Here’s a few ideas you can try:
- Herbs de Provence Prime Rib – If you want to amp up the nice, herb flavor in the crust, you can add in a few other herbs to make an herbs de provence crust. Savory, marjoram, and oregano are the first few herbs to add but you can also try adding in fennel, basil, or tarragon. Consider subbing the olive oil out for something a bit more buttery to make this a more French Prime Rib: try melted butter, ghee, or macadamia nut oil if you can find it.
- Mustard Rubbed Prime Rib – An interesting ingredient a lot of folks like to add to their prime rib rub is some nice mustard like dijon mustard. Add a tablespoon or two to your garlic, herbs, and olive oil to make a mustard rub for your prime rib. The mustard is going to add an extra little tang to your prime rib crust when it’s done- give it a shot!
- Pan Sauce – You’re going to have a lot of pan drippings and fond after making prime rib. Instead of letting all that go to waste, spoon them over your prime rib and sides or make a proper pan sauce out of them. Mix up with a bit of red wine, beef stock, garlic, and herbs and cook on the stovetop until you get a nice velvety sauce for your prime rib dinner.
Storage / Freezing
Storage: Just in case you don’t eat all your Herb Crusted Prime Rib, you should know that you can keep your leftovers in the fridge. Transfer leftover prime rib slices to an airtight container or ziploc bag and keep in the fridge. Expect it to last between 5-7 days- just give it a quick to sniff to make sure it doesn’t smell spoiled before reheating.
Freezing: You can even freeze roasted prime rib after cooking it if you want. Keep your prime rib whole or cut into slices before wrapping tightly with plastic wrap or transferring to a freezer bag. Keep in the freezer for up to 6 months.
Top tip
Cooking times will vary depending on the size of your prime rib roast. Use an internal temperature reading for best results. Here are suggested cooking times:
- 10-12 min per pound for rare roast
- 13-14 min per pound for medium-rare roast
- 14-15 min per pound for medium roast
- 16-17 min per pound for medium-well roast
Serve with Crusted Rib Roast
Looking for sides to serve with this roast? Try these:
More Side Dish Recipes
Here are some more of our favorite side dishes to serve with beef:
Herb Crusted Prime Rib
Ingredients
- 7 lb Prime Rib Roast, bone-in
- 2 tsp Kosher Salt
- 6 tbsp Olive Oil
- 3 tbsp Minced Garlic, about 9 cloves
- 3 tsp Fresh Rosemary
- 1/2 tsp Fresh Thyme
- 3 tsp Black Pepper
Instructions
- Cut the rib rack off your prime rib and use kitchen string to tie the roast back onto the bones.
- Season meat on all sides with kosher salt, cover and allow to come to room temperature.
- Preheat oven to 500.
- In a small bowl, combine olive oil, minced garlic, rosemary and thyme.
- Rub top and sides generously with garlic rub.
- Season with fresh ground pepper.
- Place roast (rib side down) into a roasting pan or cast iron skillet.
- Bake at 500 for 15 minutes.
- Reduce heat to 325 and cook for about 100 minutes for medium (70 for rare, 85 for medium-rare).
- Check for doneness with meat thermometer: 120 for rare, 130 for medium-rare, 140 for medium.
- Remove from oven and tent with foil and allow to rest for 30 minutes.
- Remove string and ribs and cut to desired thickness.
Notes
10-12 min per pound for rare roast
13-14 min per pound for medium-rare roast
14-15 min per pound for medium roast
16-17 min per pound for medium-well roast
Nutrition
Sorry Jen
I will never ever cut the ribeye steaks off the bone
SHAME on you for even suggesting it
SMDH