12 July, 2019
How To Cook A Whole Eye Of Round – Tender and Beefy!

I hope this doesn’t fail! If it does fail, I will have wasted almost $18 and this post will be about how to “not do as I do”. I’m writing this as I have my own meat in the oven.
I have never cooked an Eye of Round, but my local Meijer store had a good sale this week on them. So why not try one? For the whole eye of round it cost me $2.49 per pound and the one I picked out was 7 lbs. I figure this will feed my family for two meals. Tonight we are going to eat it with fresh green beans and potatoes, and fried okra. I’m going to take the leftovers (that is IF this turns out well) and make Philly beef sandwiches for dinner tomorrow night. Not bad for two meals!
During my research on how to cook a whole eye of round, I found recipes that said to marinate my meat overnight and they sounded yummy, but I needed this for today, so I didn’t have time to marinate it. If this experiment turns out well, I might buy another one to cook at a later date and try one of those recipes. So, today I am turning my oven on high…500 degrees! Then turning it completely off for several hours. Good thing the weather is not as hot as it has been the rest of this past week!
What You Will Need
I used a 7lb whole boneless eye of round (or whatever size fits your family), lots of salt and pepper, and minced garlic. Enough garlic to cover the meat. You will also need a good sized roasting pan for this. Mine just fit in length wise. I suppose if it was too big I could have cut it in half using a large sharp knife. Thankfully, I have large pans that I have collected over the years as my family grew in size.
Directions:
These directions are so easy! I love meals that I can put in the oven and let bake all day. I get so much work done during that time!
Take your meat and rinse it. I always clean my meat because I do not know who touched it in the store, so I don’t take any chances. A little OCD? Oh well.
After you rinse your meat, liberally season with salt and pepper. Then rub the minced garlic all over it. Put the meat into a large roasting pan that has a lid to fit and put the lid on. Put your meat into a preheated 500 degree oven. As soon as you put the pan in, turn the oven down to 475 degrees. Bake for 7 minutes per pound. For this, I baked mine for 49 minutes. After the baking time, turn the oven completely off but do NOT open the oven door for the next 2 1/2 hours!

Seasoned meat with salt, pepper and minced garlic.

Preheat oven to 500 degrees.

Immediately turn oven down to 475 degrees after meat is put in oven.
That is it! After the waiting time of 2 1/2 hours we should have a nice tender and juicy piece of meat. I’ll finish up this post and let you know how my experiment went after dinner.
Results
It worked!! Yay! Can you tell I am excited! The meat turned out juicy and tender, and I was worried! It made a lot of juice at the bottom of the pan, so I took some of it and made a gravy to serve with the meat. The rest I will reserve to cook my Philly Steak Sandwiches.

The moment of truth! I cut the meat in half to see if the center was cooked!

Look how nice it turned out! And there was plenty of juice in the bottom of the pan for making gravy and an ajus sauce for my sandwiches tomorrow.
I’m going to go back tomorrow and buy another one of these eye of rounds! For the price, this is very economical for my family. I think I will try it in a marinade and let it sit overnight. I’ll let you know how that one turns out later on.

Look how nice the meat sliced up! For a cheap cut of meat, it was very tender.
Things To Do Differently Next Time
Even though the meat turned out well, my husband and I thought there were a few things that could be done differently next time to make it even better:
- Make a fruity sauce to serve on top of the meat.
- Do not put as much garlic on it. It didn’t over power the meat, but the gravy had too much in it.
- Add Rosemary to the seasoning.
- Add sliced onions around the meat to give a little more onion flavor. Plus, we really like onions.
Your Turn
Now it is your turn to buy an Eye of Round and let me know how you cooked it. Do you have any suggestions of spices? Do you have a favorite meat sauce that I could make next time? How about a marinade? Leave me a comment below with your answers!
How To Cook A Whole Eye Of Round - Tender and Beefy!
Ingredients
- 1 - 7lb whole boneless eye of round - or a size to fit your family
- Salt and Pepper - enough to cover the whole eye of round liberally
- Minced Garlic - enough to cover the whole eye of round
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 500 degrees.
- Cover the eye of round liberally with salt, pepper and minced garlic.
- Place meat in a large Dutch oven with a lid.
- Put meat into preheated oven and immediately turn heat down to 475 degrees. Bake for 49 minutes (or 7 minutes per pound of meat).
- Do NOT open door of oven, and turn off the heat. Leave meat in oven for 2 1/2 hours. Again, it is important that you do NOT open the door during this time.