The Sunday roast is the best meal of the week, and getting it right is mostly about timing rather than skill. Here's how to bring a proper roast together, with everything landing on the table hot at the same time. Serves 4 to 6.
Pick your joint
Beef (topside or rib), a leg or shoulder of lamb, a pork loin with crackling, or a chicken, all follow the same plan. Slow-and-steady in the oven, then rested while you finish the trimmings.
The order of play
- Get the joint in first. It takes the longest and it needs to rest, so it goes in early. Use our beef joint cooking times to work out timings for the size you've got.
- Parboil the potatoes. While the joint cooks, boil peeled spuds for 8 minutes, drain, and rough them up in the colander, those fluffy edges are what go crispy.
- Roasties in. Into a tin of hot fat, plenty of room around each one. Don't crowd them.
- Rest the meat. When the joint's done, take it out, cover loosely with foil and rest it, 15 to 20 minutes for a roast, longer for a big one. This is when the oven's free to crisp the potatoes and cook the Yorkshires.
- Make the gravy in the roasting tin with all those meaty juices while everything else finishes.
The golden rule
Resting the meat isn't a delay, it's the secret. It stays hot for a good 20 minutes, gives you juicier meat, and buys you the oven space and time to nail everything else. Carve at the last minute, against the grain.
Choose your centrepiece
Browse our roasting joints, or the beef, lamb and pork ranges, all butcher-prepared and delivered fresh for Sunday.