How Long to Marinate Beef
Normally, I suggest that meat should marinate for between 2 hours and 24 hours. For this recipe, given how lean the meat is, you should marinate the eye round roast for the full 24 hours. If you are short on time, you can cut this down to 6 hours, but keep in mind this will result in a tougher meat. What I love about this Eye Round Roast is that it is a more budget friendly piece of meat. This also means that it needs a little time and attention to make it tender. With my simple marinade, we do that with minimal work. It leaves you with a roast that was not only easy to make, but full of delicious flavor.
olive oilsoy saucebrown sugarlemon juiceWorcestershire saucegarlicblack pepper
To lower the sugar content of the marinade, replace the brown sugar with 1/2 tablespoon of honey or 2 tablespoons of brown sugar monk fruit. If you or someone in your family is allergic to soy, you can replace it with coconut aminos. If you are on a low sodium diet, replace the soy sauce with low sodium soy sauce, and again only use 2 tablespoons to start. Add more only as needed for taste.
Cooking Roasts on a Rack
Cooking roasts on a rack is my favorite way to cook them. This allows the air to circulate around the meat and cook evenly. It is essential in this recipe. I recommend invested in a roasting pan that is fitted with a rack, it comes in handy for so many recipes. As mentioned above, if you don’t have a roasting pack with a rack, you can improvise. I’ve had readers tell me that placing a cooling rack – like the kind you use to cool cookies – placed on a 9 by 13 inch baking dish will work just as well.
Cooking Temperature for Beef
Even if you are someone who likes your beef well done, I suggest still removing this roast from the oven when it reaches 125 degrees Fahrenheit. This cut of beef has almost no fat in it, which means that we need to take extra steps to make it tender. We are doing that in the marinating and the way we cook it. The final step is to make sure it is not over cooked. This will dry it out. When you take the roast out of the oven at 125 degrees Fahrenheit, it will continue cooking. In the 10 minutes of resting time, it will reach 135 degrees Fahrenheit. The result will be a juicy roast. Because the sizes of roasts vary and thickness can greatly impact cooking time, I highly recommend you invest in an instant read thermometer that can be left in the roast while it bakes. This way you can base the cooking length off of temperature rather than time.
