Beef Roast

Roast beef is a dish of beef that is roasted, generally served as the main dish of a meal. In the Anglosphere, roast beef is one of the meats often served at Sunday lunch or dinner. Yorkshire pudding is a standard side dish. Sliced roast beef is also sold as a cold cut, and used as a sandwich filling.

Chuck roast is cut from the cow's shoulder. It is a heavily exercised muscle, which gives the beef good flavour but it also makes it tough. Chuck is often ground for hamburger because of its high ratio of fat to meat (20 percent fat to 80 percent meat is considered the best for a hamburger). Chuck is used for a ​pot roast or, when cubed, stew, because the connective tissue melts as the chuck braises and self-bastes the beef, making it very tender. Other roasts cut from the chuck are Boston Cut and English Roast or Cross Cut.

The economical eye of round roast is cut from the rear leg of the beef steer or heifer. It is similar in appearance to the tenderloin, but because it is cut from a well-exercised muscle, the eye of round is lean and tough. Eye of round can be cooked with high-heat searing and slow roasting, braising, simmering or poaching. However, because it is very flavourful, it can also be cooked as roast beef. Like with other tough cuts, the eye of round should always be thinly sliced against the grain.

A rib roast is cut from the rib section between the shoulder and the short loin (behind the ribs). The three most common rib roasts are Standing Rib Roast, Rolled Rib Roast and Rib-Eye Roast.

The top round roast is cut from the upper thigh of the hindquarters of the beef cow. The top round is not a heavily worked muscle, which results in a roast that's more tender and flavourful than other cuts from the round. Top round is often mislabeled and sold in supermarkets as London Broil, which is not an actual cut of beef but a method for cooking tough cuts. Top round roast can also be braised, roasted, stewed or cooked in a slow cooker. You can even slice it for use in sandwiches.

Rump roast is a triangular cut from the upper part of the round or the hindquarters. Like other well-exercised muscles, the beef is lean and flavourful, but because it can be quite tough, the rump roast should be cooked slowly at lower temperatures, which allows time for the cut's connective tissue to soften and melt.

The sirloin tip roast (also known as round tip roast) is cut from the hindquarters, adjacent to the sirloin. The sirloin tip roast is flavourful, but like most lean cuts, it can be tough and should be braised or stewed. The sirloin tip roast can also be used for kebabs or slowly oven-roasted at a low temperature.