So I took, actually 2 6lb. rib roasts for Christmas dinner out of the freezer on Saturday, having googled that 5 days should be plenty to thaw them.
But I just checked them and they have some surface give, but still seem mostly frozen. I’ve googled solutions and I think I have a decent handle on what to do (AI advice below, which seems sound), but I wanted to get all your advice and thoughts.
Yes, you can cook a mostly frozen rib roast, but it will take significantly longer (around 50% more time), requires patience, and needs a low-and-slow approach to cook evenly, ideally using a thermometer and resting it well to avoid a burnt outside and cold inside. You can start at a high heat briefly for searing, then drop the temperature to cook through, or use a covered Dutch oven for slow, even cooking, but a probe thermometer is essential for safety and perfection.
Method: Oven Roast (Low & Slow)
Prep: Pat the frozen roast dry and apply your seasonings (dry rub is great).
Sear (Optional but Recommended): Place on a rack in a pan and roast at a higher temp (450°F) for 25-30 mins to get some color.
Lower Heat: Reduce oven temp to 300-375°F.
Cook: Cook for approximately 20-35 minutes per pound, depending on desired doneness (rare vs. medium). Use a meat thermometer to check internal temp, aiming for about 10-15 degrees below your final target.
Rest: Once done, remove, tent tightly with foil, and let it rest for 20-40 minutes; the temperature will rise and even out.
Tips & Considerations
<<Time is Key: Expect it to take roughly 1.5 to 2 hours longer than a thawed roast.
Thermometer is Mandatory: A probe thermometer is your best friend for ensuring doneness without guesswork.
Uneven Cooking Risk: Be patient; rushing will burn the outside before the inside thaws and cooks.
Best for Flavor?: Some chefs find cooking from frozen locks in moisture and yields great flavor, but it requires careful temperature management.
Here’s what I would do. Pat the roasts dry and season liberally with kosher salt and pepper. Allow to rest in the fridge, uncovered and unwrapped, for as long as you have. At least five hours before you want to eat, turn your oven on to 200F. Insert a temperature probe (if you have a thermometer equipped with a probe you can leave in the roast in the oven) into the thickest part of the roast. Let it go for three hours, then start checking the probe for temperature. The closer you get to your target temp, the more often you want to check it, but 135F is perfect for medium-rare. Once you hit your target, remove the roast from the oven and tent it loosely with foil. Let it rest for at least 30 minutes, or as long as 90 minutes. In the meantime, crank your oven to 550F. Put the roast back into the oven - without the foil tent - fat side up, for eight minutes. Remove, slice, and serve. No need to rest.
This reverse-sear method is more fool-proof, and results in even less of a gray band than the high-low method you’ve outlined. If you do the high heat first to get a good sear, first the oven needs to dry the surface of the meat before it develops that wonderful crust, and while the surface moisture is evaporating, it’s also cooking the meat just below for the entire searing time (probably 20 minutes). If you start low, that surface moisture will evaporate while the meat is coming up to temperature slowly, and by the time you hit your target temperature, not only will the meat be a more uniform temp throughout, but the surface will be dry, so the searing process goes much faster and results in a smaller gray band.
Now, if it’s REALLY solid in the middle, I’d leave it on the counter for as long as possible tonight, then put it in the fridge. Bear in mind that this what I would do, not what I’d recommend anybody else would do. I would not recommend anybody do anything that runs the risk of getting anybody sick, and leaving a large hunk of raw meat on the counter for hours violates a lot of food safety guidance. It’s just what I would do.
I would consider brining them, frozen, as described here. If they are still a bit frozen when you need to cook them, I would do it for longer or at a lower temperature and use a meat thermometer. But I am not a cook or chef, this is just what I would do.
I would dig out my sous vide setup, put the roast in a large ziplock bag, and set it to whatever your desired doneness is. The sous vide setup I basically never use, but damn, it would help in this case.
I’d also shove a wireless thermometer into the heart of the roast to make sure it actually came up to temp.
Shortly before serving, I’d take it out of the bag, pat it dry with paper towels, dust with salt and pepper, and sear it in as hot an oven as i was comfortable with, with the convection fan on.
If i didn’t have a sous vide setup, I’d leave it cold water in a big pot probably overnight. I’d probably leave it in my garage, which is cooler than room temp, but not as cold as a fridge. Then I’d cook the thawed meat. But like ricepad, i don’t recommend anyone else do that. And if you do it despite violating food safety rules, use a good thermometer, and make sure you cook it thoroughly. Look up the integrated temperature/time charts (used for sous vide) because of you are willing to let the meat hang out (rest) at a moderately high temp, you don’t need to cook the hell out of it to pasteurize it.
I’m going in an unpopular direction - tonight I’d use microwave defrost each set at half their weights and then back in fridge. By morning should be more close to fully defrosted. If still hard then another vote for reverse sear. I might do the cook in the smoker.
Another option is the same used for turkeys that need a quicker defrost. Sealed in a plastic bag in a bowl of water in the fridge overnight.
Oh, also, I have two refrigerators. The main one, in the kitchen, keeps things very cold. This is great, because most foods keep longer at just above freezing than at a warmer temp. But it sucks for defrosting. When I need to defrost something of any size, I put it in the basement fridge and turn the temp to as warm as it goes. It’s still cool. It’s still within food safety guidelines. But it’s a lot warmer than my kitchen fridge, and that make a big difference.
I suspect your fridge is colder than whatever the standard was when those defrosting guidelines were written. It doesn’t help you to know that this time, but it’s something to think about for next time.
I can’t salt or brine the roasts, due to the cooking method. It’s an English roast cooked in beef fat, and the beef fat is also used for making Yorkshire puddings and gravy. So I have to limit salt so it doesn’t get the beef fat too salty. The roast gets salted after cooking, not before, which I know breaks all traditional roast cooking methods, but trust me when I say the end result is worth it.
I put the zip-lock bagged roasts in cold water in pans in both of our refrigerators. I briefly thought of leaving them out overnight in the garage, which is 55F right now. If it was just me and my wife I wouldn’t have a problem with that, but I’m cooking for my extended family so I don’t want to take any chances. I did turn down the thermostat for the garage fridge, which was for some reason set too cold, as @puzzlegal correctly deduced.
Part of me, though, is thinking the defrost overnight in water method is not a great idea. I’m afraid that the outer layer will defrost, the inner will still be frozen, and it will cause the roast to cook too unevenly— done on the outside before the inside properly gets to temp. I have plenty of experience cooking low and slow, and part of me really thinks I should just leave it as-is, mostly frozen, start plenty early, and go about 300F to let it all get up to temp more evenly. But I made my choice and did the water defrost method
Seems @solost is already on track for this, but @puzzlegal’s advice would normally match my own. My garage this time of year (despite unseasonably high daytime temps) runs to the low-to-mid 50sF, but I have in the past done an overnight brine on my catio (wire enclosed outside patio) with temps ranging from 50 to 40. Just so much space, and it’s still warmish fridge temps most of the night.
But seriously since Solost specified they were cooking for extended family, with who knows what risk factors, playing it more safe makes sense. I think you’ll be fine, and if need be tomorrow, you could do the wasteful but effective cold water bath with constant convection with running water and do pretty well. That was my last speed choice option, though the water waste bugged me.
Low and slow is the name of the game here. Roast at 250F and you’ll end up with a roast that is tender, barely done at the outside and perfect in the middle. I’ve done many, many of these. It’s foolproof, even if your roast is a bit frozen on the inside. Mandatory is a meat thermometer.
ETA: It will take longer per pound, probably about 10 minutes per pound longer.
Yes, but if that’s true for a mostly frozen roast, how much overdone will the outside 2/3 be if that outside 2/3 has been thawed but the center is still frozen? That’s what I’m concerned about.
Whereas a mostly frozen roast is in the same state as a thawed roast, just at a (mostly uniform) lower temperature. So theoretically, it seems that it would be more or less the same cooking process, just slower.
Yep, I was thinking 300F, but I probably can’t go wrong with 250. Maybe split the diff and go 275. And yes, I have about 15 meat thermometers, and 1 or 2 of them still work
275F is fine, too. I was thinking the lower temperature because of the possible still-frozen center. It’s the low heat that allows the center to gradually come up to the proper temperature while not overcooking the outside. The difference is staggering.
It’s a lot of expensive meat, you want it perfect for the family and you just can’t go wrong with the low and slow method. I don’t do 'em any other way, and they are always superb!
I’ve cooked dozens of pork butts low and slow over the years, so I have the patience for it for sure.
It’s a little differen with a beef roast, since with the pork butt you want to get it all cooked enough to render the fat and connective tissue; too well done isn’t really a concern. Whereas with a beef roast you want it to be a nice medium rare-ish throughout, as much as possible. But for both, low and slow is the key. I think I got this.
Well, off to bed now to get a good night’s sleep and be ready for the Christmas cooking. Thanks again to all for your advice!
Clicking that link seems to have signed me up for three newsletters… (I have a subscription to the NYT.) I’ll try it, though.
My concern is that ice (and frozen meat) is actually a superb insulator, so I’d be afraid the interior would heat even more slowly if there’s a larger chunk that’s frozen. But I’ve never tried it.
I’m curious to hear, as well. I’ve done pork butt from frozen without any issues before but, as stated, it’s a little bit different of a cook, and to much higher temperatures. I suspect rib roast from frozen would work just fine given a slow enough oven (I’d probably go 225-250), but take an unpredicable while. Looking forward to hearing the results. (I’d probably chicken out and just defrost it with a bucket of water, which should take 6-ish-ish hours, but if you’re a stickler about food safety, you have to be careful with how you manage that,)
So as I said, I decided to thaw the roasts using the cold water bath method @puzzlegal recommended. I let the roasts thaw overnight in the water bath in our refrigerators, instead of letting them stay in our 55F garage overnight, to be very safe.
I was skeptical of this method as I also mentioned, thinking it might be better to just go low and slow with the mostly frozen roasts than try to thaw them and probably get uneven results with a thawed outside and frozen middle. I thought letting them thaw in the refrigerators instead of in our 55F garage, while playing it safe, would not thaw them enough.
But I was pretty surprised to find they were thawed through this morning. I knew the water bath method worked well on smaller cuts of meat, but 6lb roasts? Turns out, yes! The center of the slightly larger roast was 31F at the start. They both cooked to a perfect medium rare throughout. And I didn’t really have to do any low and slow adjustments to get there, mostly just a typical beef rib roast cook. I started early just in case, and they finished early so I wrapped them in foil and stored them in a cooler to rest.
So kudos to @puzzlegal for your advice, thank you! And thanks to all who contributed to this thread. As @ParallelLines said, I hope you all had a wonderful roast-beastness, whether you’re a carnivore or not
