Grass-fed beef tends to be leaner than grain-fed beef. This means that with roasts, there is less fat through the meat (less marbling). With a typical roast, dry cooking it in the oven usually causes the fat through the meat to melt keeping the meat moist. With less fat, grass-fed beef is liable to dry out if you cook it like you would a roast from the grocery store.
You’ll never go wrong cooking one of these roasts in the crock pot or dutch oven, with plenty of liquid (broth, wine, water), at a low temperature for a long time. This will give the meat time to break down, and the liquid keeps everything moist.
If you’re looking to do a traditional Sunday roast (like my granny did, with Yorkshire pudding, mashed potatoes and gravy), keep in mind the low and slow method. After much trial and error, we’ve had the most success with this recipe from The Domestic Man: Perfect Eye of Round Roast for grass fed roast beef. It turns out well with eye of round roast, but will also work with some of the other roasts, you will just have to carve around more connective tissue to get nice slices of roast beef.
Steak Roasts– This is usually referred to as a round roast. This is a pretty tough cut of meat, and will benefit from slow, low cooking. Cook it as a pot roast in the dutch oven or, if you have one, use your slow cooker. Make sure there is lots of liquid to keep everything moist and give the meat plenty of time to break down and tender up. You could also try doing this roast as pulled beef, same cooking style, low and slow in lots of liquid, but the result is similar to pulled pork. Serve it on buns with caramelized onions and the cooking liquid.
Short Rib Roast & Blade Roast– will both work as either pot roasts or dry roasts.
Sirloin Tip Roast- This is a very lean roast, so keep that in mind when choosing a cooking method.
If you’re not familiar with using a crock pot or slow cooker, here are a few recipes to get you started:
- Slow cooker maple and dijon pot roast (one of our favourites)
- Slow cooker pot roast
- Balsamic roast beef French dip sandwiches
- Easy slow cooker shredded beef
- Slow cooker roast beef Po’ Boys sandwiches
And if you don’t own a slow cooker, check out this article which discusses converting slow cooker recipes for the dutch oven: