Several years ago I adopted prime rib as the star of my Christmas Eve dinner. After experimenting with numerous recipes and cooking styles, I believe I have landed at the perfect balance of flavor and technique: a dry brine overnight, low temperature, slow cook, with reverse-sear to brown.
If you’re not familiar with a dry brine don’t worry, I wasn’t either. Dry brining is a technique that uses salt, pepper, and other spices to tenderize meat in the ‘open air’ in a refrigerator for 24 to 48 hours in advance of cooking.
A reverse searing is a two-step cooking process that browns the meat at the end of a cook using the oven, instead of browning traditionally on a stove top. Not only does this save calories from not using oil, reverse searing has the additional benefits of providing the “chef” a time window to cook side dishes and dramatically cuts down on the amount of clean up needed. Who’s not in favor of fewer dishes?
Dry brine uncovered in fridge overnight 
Pull out EARLY in the morning and allow to come to room temperature 
Cover and place in oven … 
… on the VERY LOW temperature of 180° 
When internal temperature reaches 130° remove and rest for 45 to 60 minutes 
Cook your side dishes while the roast is resting 
Crank up oven to 500° and return for 15 minutes 
Let stand for 10 minutes then carve! 
The perfect centerpiece for a Christmas Eve dinner!
Ingredients
1 bone-in prime rib roast, 4 to 6 bones
A lot of coarse Italian, Mediterranean Sea salt (about 1/2 cup)
An equal amount of fresh ground, coarse cracked pepper
Fresh garlic
1/4 cup of fresh rosemary
1/4 cup of fresh thyme
Olive oil
Special Equipment
Trust me when I say you should buy a SCANPAN brand roasting pan for this recipe. It’s a roasting pan made in Denmark of pressure-cast aluminum with a ceramic-titanium nonstick finish. It is safe, can be used with any utensil, and requires literally zero cleaning other than a spray with a kitchen faucet. Nothing in the world sticks to it. Worth every penny!
Steps
Step 1 – Dry Brine
The day before … remove the roast from all packaging, rub with salt and pepper, pressing hard to grind the large, coarse salt crystals into the top layer of fat, then refrigerate completely uncovered overnight.
Step 2
Early in the morning, remove the roast and allow it to come up to room temperature (2 hours for 4-bone, 3 hours for a 6-bone). This will shave an hour or more off total cooking time.
Step 3 – Long and Slow
Preheat oven to 180°.
Make small incisions in the top fat and insert garlic cloves. Combine thyme and rosemary with some olive oil and gently rub on top of the salt and pepper.
Cover with foil and roast in the oven … A 4-bone will cook at 30 to 40 minutes per pound. A 6-bone will cook at 40 to 60 minutes per pound.
When the internal temperature reaches 130° remove from the oven and set on top of the stove covered in foil for 45 to 60 minutes. The roast will continue to increase in temperature and will reach 140° by itself.
Use the time wisely to cook side dishes and casseroles!
Some recipes call for a standing time of 90 minutes so there is a bit of runway if you need to delay serving or have a side dish that takes longer.
My 2020 Christmas Eve prime rib was a 6-bone (13 pounds),which went into the oven at 11 AM and took until 8 PM to reach the initial 130°. If you are striving for a set dinner time, error on the side of starting earlier and allow the roast to stand longer before the searing step.
Step 4 – Reverse Sear
Crank up the heat in the oven: 475° to 500° and return the roast for 15 minutes, this will brown the outside to beautiful, crisp perfection. This is called reverse-searing and saves the mess and calories of browning a roast in a frying pan with oil.
Enjoy!
Allow 10 minutes to cool and rest before carving. Pairs perfectly with Sweet Potato Souffle and a well-aged cabernet sauvignon.
Feel free to comment, I would love to hear from you