Garlic Thyme Studded Beef Tenderloin Roast with Red Wine Sauce

Roasting a Beef Tenderloin

Roasting is a great way to cook beef tenderloin. It results in even cooking throughout so everyone gets a nice perfectly cooked filet once it is sliced.

Roasting it on low heat ensures that most of your tenderloin will be the perfect temperature, instead of just the very center of the meat. This is for two reasons:

1. First, the heat is relatively low at 300°F, therefore, the meat comes to temperature gradually. When you roast at higher temperatures, you risk the meat overcooking on the outside while the middle remains raw. This isn't desirable and has the potential to ruin everyone's meal aside from that one person who likes their beef to taste like a leather shoe. 
2. Secondly, the carryover is not as aggressive at lower temperatures. Carryover is the process of the meat continuing to cook after it is out of the oven. At only 300°F, the carryover will be about 7-10 degrees because the meat doesn’t have as much internal energy as it would if you cooked it at 375° or 400°F. Therefore, when you temp your meat to check for doneness, you can account for this carryover to achieve the desired doneness you and your guests prefer.

We also choose to sear the meat at the end after it comes out of the oven. We do this to achieve a nice crust on the outside after it has been roasted. The searing should be done in a super hot skillet, and should only take a minute per side max so you don't cook your meat more than necessary. 

What does "Studded" mean?

While the meat is raw, we take garlic and thyme and insert it into the meat. This is done by taking a knife and cutting small slits all over the tenderloin and pushing the sliced garlic and thyme into the holes.

Studding the beef with garlic and thyme adds so much flavor to the meat and, when cut, it looks beautiful. Because the tenderloin doesn’t take much time to cook and is cooked at low heat, the garlic must be sautéed before studding the beef. Otherwise, the garlic will not cook, and you’ll have raw slices of garlic to eat with your beef, which isn't ideal at all. But a little sauté beforehand goes a long way. We stick sliced garlic and thyme right in the raw meat to give it extra flavor!

Ingredients

This recipe for beef tenderloin includes common ingredients that are fairly easy to find at your local grocery store:

• Beef Tenderloin: We recommend a beef tenderloin around 2-4 lbs (depending on how many people you plan to feed) for this recipe. We generally buy USDA Prime beef over USDA Choice or Select. USDA Prime beef is a high quality grade of meat with a good amount of marbling and flavor. If you can't find prime, shoot for USDA Choice, but try to avoid USDA Select for this dish since Select is a lower quality product. Since we serve beef tenderloin for special occasions, we prefer the higher quality grades. Beef tenderloin is generally an expensive cut of meat, which is why it is great to splurge for a holiday dinner or special occasion. 
• Garlic Cloves: Use fresh whole cloves of garlic for this recipe.
• Unsalted butter
• Thyme sprigs: We use the tender end of the fresh sprig of thyme to insert into the raw beef along with the garlic.
• Thyme leaves: Thyme leaves are also chopped and combined with soften butter and shallot as a compound butter to coat the tenderloin with before roasting.
• Shallot​
• Salt and Black Pepper
• Clarified Butter or Ghee: We use clarified butter or ghee for searing the tenderloin. Since the milk solids have been removed, you don't get any browning or burning of the milk solids while searing the beef but you do get a nice buttery flavor.

Sauce Ingredients:

• Beef stock: We use beef stock (low sodium or sodium free) to give the sauce a rich beefy flavor. 
• Unsalted butter
• Shallot
• Dry Red Wine: Always use a red wine that you enjoy drinking for sauces. It doesn't need to be expensive, but should be drinkable. We prefer using a cabernet sauvignon, merlot, Zinfandel, or other full bodied dry red wine for this recipe. 
• Whole black peppercorns: The peppercorns are added whole to infuse their flavor in the sauce. You will strain the peppercorns and other solids out of the sauce before serving.
• Bay leaf
• Red wine vinegar

See recipe card for quantities.

Substitutions

Here are some common substitutions that will work for this recipe:

• Clarified Butter or Ghee - you can use olive oil or avocado oil here instead.
• Shallot - use sweet yellow onion in place of shallot if needed.
• Beef Stock - since we are serving the sauce with beef, beef stock is recommended here, but you can use roasted and full flavor vegetable or chicken stock if necessary.
• Red Wine Vinegar - you can replace the red wine vinegar with another wine vinegar, such as white wine vinegar or sherry vinegar.

Equipment

You likely have everything you need already in your kitchen, but there are a few items we recommend for this recipe such as a roasting pan with wire rack and kitchen twine. Additionally, you will need good saucepan or high sided medium frying pan to make the sauce.

We also highly recommend that you use a meat thermometer to ensure that you cook the beef tenderloin to the desired doneness. We recently tried out the Meater Plus and absolutely love the ability to track the internal temperature of the meat using an app on your phone!

Instructions

This recipe is fairly easy to make but does take some time, so plan ahead.

Prepare your Beef Tenderloin

Begin by completely drying off your whole tenderloin with paper towels and trimming any excess fat, then tie it in 3-4 places with kitchen twine. This will ensure that your tenderloin stays uniform in shape as it cooks. 

Stud the Beef with Garlic and Thyme

Thinly slice your garlic cloves and sauté in butter to cook them for a minute or two without browning to remove that raw bitter flavor. Then take a sharp knife and cut little slits all over your raw tenderloin. Insert a slice of garlic and thyme tip in each slot. Then we recommend that you place your whole beef tenderloin uncovered on a wire rack over a baking tray in the refrigerator for at least 2 hours and up to two days. Read the "Aging your Beef" section below for why we recommend this.

If necessary, you can skip the refrigeration resting step and make this recipe immediately after coating the beef in butter.

Roasting the Beef

Remove the beef tenderloin from the fridge about 30 minutes at room temperature before your plan to cook. While the beef is resting, preheat your oven to 300°F and prepare your compound butter but mixing the softened butter with the thyme leaves and diced shallot. Season beef tenderloin with salt and pepper, then rub the compound butter over the tenderloin to coat completely.

Place the butter-coated beef tenderloin on a rack in a roasting pan, and roast in the oven on the center oven rack for about 45-60 minutes or until the internal temperature reads 125°F using an instant-read thermometer. This is for medium rare doneness accounting for about 7-10°F of carryover while the meat rests on your cutting board. The cooking times will vary depending on the size of your beef tenderloin and your desired level of doneness. Make the sauce while the beef roasts. 

Beef Doneness Guide: How do you like your steak?

The following are the temperatures you want to achieve for various levels of doneness.

• Rare: 120-130°F
• Medium Rare: 130-135°F
• Medium: 135-145°F
• For Medium Well and beyond…. just don’t do it.

Hint: Keep in mind that you should plan for about 10°F of carryover and you will want to remove your roast from the oven BEFORE it reaches the temps listed here.

Make the Sauce

While your beef tenderloin is roasting, make the rich red wine sauce. Begin by add the beef stock to a medium saucepan over medium heat and reducing by two-thirds. Once reduced, remove and set aside. Add the butter to the saucepan with the shallots and sauté for a few minutes until they begin to brown.

Next add the wine, peppercorns and bay leaf and continue to cook until the wine reduces down to about a ¼ cup remaining in the pan. Strain out and discard the solids using a fine sieve, then return the sauce back to the pan. Add the red wine vinegar and reduced beef stock and continue to cook until thickened slightly and coats the back of a spoon. Reduce heat to low until your roast is done.

Variations

Although we really love this version and make it most of the time, there are many ways you can change it up to your preference.

• Add different herbs - thyme is a classic herb for tenderloin, but you can easily replace the thyme with another her such as rosemary or sage in this recipe. Or use a combination of these.
• Make a different sauce​ - we love experimenting with sauces! Check out other red wine sauces like our Juniper Red Wine Sauce, Zinfandel Red Wine Reduction, or Blueberry Thyme Red Wine Reduction.

For a more unique sauce, check out our Brandy Peppercorn Cream Sauce recipe!

Don't skip the red wine sauce!

We are steak purists for the most part around here, so we don't usually believe that steaks require sauces. This is especially true if you have a good quality cut of beef.

BUT, we beg you, DO NOT SKIP THE SAUCE in this recipe! 

This particular sauce, which is based on a bordelaise, complements the steak instead of covering up the flavors and is absolutely amazing with the tenderloin. Honestly, licking the sauce off the plate is completely appropriate, and expected here! This sauce is so rich with layers of flavor that it elevates this tenderloin to a restaurant style dish that will WOW your guests!

Why coat your tenderloin with compound butter?

Most of the compound butter you coat your beef with melts and falls off the roast in the oven. However, it really adds a delicious flavor to your roast and keeps it nice and juicy throughout the roasting process. We have cooked tenderloins with and without the compound butter, and by far, we prefer the ones with the compound butter in overall taste and texture.

Additionally, because you cut small holes all over your tenderloin to stud it, the butter will melt into these holes to make your meat even juicier.

Storage

This recipe for beef tenderloin is best enjoy immediately after roasting. But if you have leftovers, here is how to store them.

How to store leftovers in the fridge:

Store your beef tenderloin leftovers in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days. Store the sauce in a separate airtight container. We do not recommend freezing beef tenderloin leftovers.

How to reheat leftovers:

To reheat, remove beef tenderloin from the fridge, wrap in aluminum foil and reheat in a preheated 350°F oven until heated through. Reheat the sauce gently in a saucepan on low heat. 

Top tip: Aging Your Beef Tenderloin Prior to Roasting

So, how about aging your roast? I can’t tell you how much better it is if you let it sit on a roasting rack in the refrigerator, uncovered, for a good amount of time (about 6 hours or up to 2 days). You will definitely notice the aging in texture and flavor and will be converted to this easy technique for sure. You can do all the prep in the morning for a dinner, which will be enough time to enhance the flavors of your meat. We definitely prefer to prep the beef the night before and let it dry overnight and all the next day. If you have the time and have planned it out, we highly recommend that you try aging your beef in this way!

What to Serve with Beef Tenderloin

Don't forget the sides! We love serving this Garlic Thyme Studded Beef Tenderloin Roast with our Hasselback Red Potatoes with Chive Butter and some broccolini.

Or serve it with some luscious Roasted Garlic Blue Cheese Tarragon Mashed Potatoes if you want to complement the garlic in the roast.

This beef tenderloin would also pair nicely with a Grilled Romaine and Pear Steakhouse Salad or Sheet Pan Chickpea and Vegetable Medley Dinner.

Switch it up and make it Italian with a side of Christmas Fettuccine Alfredo with Mushrooms (No Cream) or Smoked Gouda and Porcini Mushroom Polenta.