I have been buying New York Strip roasts in the 6-8 pound range at Costco and figuring out the best way of preparing them. I finally have a technique down that is incredibly simple and is a GREAT way to feed steak to a crowd.
Slow cooking a 6-8 pound roast in a smoker is so much easier than trying to cook a dozen steaks over a hot grill.
New York Strip Roast Recipe
Here are the ingredients you are going to need. I am sharing the commercial products I used but will also give you some substitutions that will work.
- One New York Strip Roast (6-8 pounds)
- 5 Tablespoons Montreal Steak Seasoning
- 1/2 Cup Head Country Hot and Spicy Barbecue Sauce
The general technique is as follows:
- Trim off the fat cap and underlying silverskin.
- Season the roast liberally with Montreal Steak Seasoning
- Place the roast on your smoker (or in your oven) at 225F.
- Smoke the roast for approximately two hours and then baste with the barbecue sauce.
- Smoke the roast for about another 30 minutes until an internal temperature of 135F is reached.
- Remove the roast from the smoker and allow it to rest for 15 minutes before slicing thinly.
Notes and Substitutions
Trimming The Roast: There are a lot of folks who are going to tell you that “fat is flavor” and you should keep the fat cap on. I disagree.
Under the fat cap is a layer of silverskin. That silverskin will not get tender during cooking but will prevent smoke and seasoning from reaching the meat. I saw go ahead and expose the entire surface of the roast so you can get more flavor in there.
Here is a Before and After shot of this roast. Trimming the roast has multiple benefits:
- More surface exposure for seasoning
- My smoker will stay cleaner
- My guests won’t be chewing on bites of fat and silverskin
Low Heat vs High Heat: There are a lot of recipes for various roasts that have an initial High Heat step that is intended to develop a flavorful crust on the surface of the meat. One typical approach is searing all sides in a cast iron pan before placing in a low heat oven. Another approach is to place the roast into a 500F oven for 10-15 minutes before lowering the oven temperature.
I skip this step for several reasons:
- The Montreal Steak Seasoning has LOTS of garlic which would scorch and become bitter at high heat.
- It makes the recipe more intimidating and I want people to approach this with confidence.
- The barbecue sauce creates a flavor layer on the meat surface instead
- Meat cooked at low temperature is almost always more tender than meat that has been subjected to searing temperatures.
Montreal Steak Seasoning: This is my “go to” steak seasoning just because it is pretty good and readily available at the grocery store. In reality there are a ton of beef rubs that would work equally well on this cut. You could go with something as simple as salt and pepper or something as complex as this brisket rub I created after studying what the professionals use.
Head Country Hot and Spicy Barbecue Sauce: The barbecue sauce serves two functions. It adds a layer of flavor to the meat and it adds color.
This roast is cooked “low and slow” for the entire cook and the surface of the roast doesn’t look that appealing. In the picture below the image on the left is the roast right before the sauce was applied. It looks kind of “meh”. On the right is an image of the roast after the sauce was applied and allowed to set for the last 30 minutes of cooking. Much better!
The point is, you are going to want to use a dark colored sauce to get the right color on the beef. Don’t be messing around with Mustard Sauce, Alabama White Sauce or Carolina Vinegar Sauce.
As far as the flavor profile is concerned I have always found that beef goes better with “Spicy” than it does with “Sweet”.
Head Country Hot and Spicy ticks off all the boxes for me. If you can’t find it locally, or prefer to make your own, just try to go for “dark and spicy”.
Choice of Smoking Wood: The roast is only in the smoker for a couple of hours so I went with Hickory which has a stronger flavor profile than you get with something like Apple. For more information about smoke woods and beef check out Best Wood For Smoking Brisket.
Oven vs Smoker: If you don’t have an oven then you can absolutely cook this roast in your oven instead. If you want to get a smoke flavor profile then go ahead and add a couple of teaspoons of Liquid Smoke to the barbecue sauce. It’s not the same but it works 🙂
Go ahead and give this technique a try…You will be glad that you did!
Better Than Brisket
I love brisket as much as the next guy but this is a much better way of feeding beef to a crowd.
While the roast costs almost twice as much on a per pound basis than a brisket that difference becomes negligible when you come down to the final cost per serving. You lose about half the weight of the brisket during trimming and cooking but only a fraction of the roast goes to waste.
The roast takes a fraction of the time to cook compared to a brisket and, assuming that you are using a digital thermometer to measure internal temperatures, is almost impossible to screw up.
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