How To Tie a Roast

Honestly, I bought my spool of kitchen twine for a craft project, not for tying up roasts. But having the spool on hand proved incredibly useful when an oddly shaped roast came home from the butcher. Tying a roast does more than just make the roast look tidier in the pan and on the plate, but not every roast needs to be tied. Here’s when and how to tie large roasts like pork loin and beef tenderloin roasts.

Almost any kind of meat can be tied for a number of reasons. For example, stuffed or rolled chicken breasts are sometimes tied to hold in their filling while cooking. For our proposes, we’ll primarily be talking about tying large cuts of meat like pork loin, beef tenderloin, or prime ribs roasts. Here are three times when you’ll want to tie a roast and each of their benefits.

1. Your roast is unevenly shaped: This happens most often with beef tenderloins, where the ends can be thinner. Folding the thinner end under the rest of the loin makes for a neater presentation and prevents the smaller ends from overcooking.
2. When your roast is split and stuffed: Want to add rosemary and garlic to your pork roast? You can split it down the middle, stuff it, and tie the meat back together for roasting.
3. For a perfectly cooked roast: Beyond just tying up a tail end, tying can be used for prime rib roasts where the rib bones are cut off the meat and tied under the roast to elevate the roast without a rack, making for a more evenly cooked roast.

Adeptly named kitchen or butcher’s twine, this kind of twine is made of cotton and preferred by professionals for its ability to grip the meat. Linen twine is another acceptable option, but comes with a much higher price tag than its cotton counterpart. Skip the colored, synthetic, or poly twine. In a pinch, reach for unwaxed dental floss if you can’t find cotton or linen twine.

There are several methods for tying a roast, and while this classic butcher’s method takes a little more practice, it has many benefits. Since this method relies on a half hitch knot, you can easily adjust the tension of each loop without having to untie and re-tie several sections.

• Secure the twine. Make a slip knot on one end of the roast. This is the anchor for your twine. Using a slip knot to set the twine in place means you can adjust this knot’s placement and tension at any point during the tying.
• Make a series of loops or half hitch knots to cover the roast. Here’s the real work of this technique: You’ll pull a length of twine out away from your anchor and create a large, loose loop. Slide this loop over the roast and shimmy it up about an inch from your anchor knot. Then repeat to the length of the roast.
• Tie the roast from end to end. Once your roast is tied around its width, run the twine down the length of the roast, securing it under the loops. Pull the twine so that it’s taut around the roast, but not too tight that it squishes the roast. Secure the twine at your anchor knot and trim any excess. Now it’s time to roast!

You’ll primarily see recipes call for tying a roast when the meat being used is improved in any the tying, here we use tying to keep a beef tenderloin beautiful while it is browned and then covered in a salt dome.