How-To Guides

How to Cook Topside of Beef

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Roasted topside of beef ready to be carved

What is Topside of Beef?

How to Cook Topside of Beef: Topside of beef is a cost-effective roasting joint taken from the hindquarter of the cow, just beneath the rump. Lean yet full of flavour, it’s a classic choice for Sunday roasts and equally good served cold the next day.

Generally considered one of the leanest cuts, Swaledale’s topside benefits from the natural marbling of our heritage breed cattle. This intramuscular fat, combined with proper dry-ageing, results in a more succulent and flavoursome roast.

If you’re wondering how to cook topside of beef, start with a hot oven to develop a crust, then roast gently to preserve tenderness. Rest well before carving for best results.

How Long to Roast Topside of Beef?

To get the best flavour and texture, we recommend serving topside of beef medium-rare. Roasting slowly at a low temperature is a great method, especially for leaner cuts — it’s a technique favoured by many of the professional chefs we work with. Depending on the size of your joint, this approach will take a minimum of three hours.

Alternatively, topside can be roasted using a more traditional method. We’ve provided a step-by-step guide for both approaches.

Swaledale topside is available in six different weights, so there’s something for every gathering. As a general guide, roast for 15–20 minutes per 500g after an initial 15 minutes at a higher temperature. Aim for an internal temperature of 53–55°C for medium-rare.

How to Cook Topside of Beef to Perfection

Traditional Roasting Technique

  1. Remove the topside of beef from its packaging and let it come to room temperature.
  2. Preheat your oven to 200°C. Season the beef generously with fine sea salt and rub with a little olive oil.
  3. Place the topside on a roasting tray and transfer to the oven. Roast for 10 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 145°C.
  4. Continue cooking for 20 minutes per 500g, plus an additional 10 minutes.
  5. Once done, remove from the oven and rest the beef for at least 45 minutes before carving. Slice against the grain — thickness is down to personal preference.

Low Temperature Roasting Technique

This method delivers more uniform cooking and a juicier result than traditional roasting. A meat thermometer is essential for accuracy.

  1. This method delivers more uniform cooking and a juicier result than traditional roasting. A meat thermometer is essential for accuracy.
  2. Remove the topside of beef from the fridge and its packaging, then pat dry and allow it to come to room temperature.
  3. Preheat your oven to 65°C. This is very low — on some gas ovens, the pilot light may be enough.
  4. Rub the beef with olive oil and season well with sea salt and black pepper. Heat a griddle or heavy-based frying pan until smoking hot.
  5. Sear the beef all over, turning frequently until evenly coloured. This should take 6–10 minutes.
  6. Transfer to the oven. Depending on the size of the joint, roasting will take a minimum of 3 hours. Use a meat thermometer to check the internal temperature — aim for 49–51°C for rare, 53–55°C for medium-rare, or 57–59°C for medium.
  7. Rest the beef loosely covered with foil for 20–30 minutes before carving against the grain.

Top Tips for Cooking Topside of Beef

  • Resting is just as important as roasting. The larger the joint of beef, the longer it should rest before carving — this allows the juices to redistribute, resulting in a more tender and flavourful roast. For a topside joint, aim for a minimum of 45 minutes. Larger cuts can benefit from up to an hour.
  • Use a meat thermometer for accuracy, particularly when slow-roasting, to avoid overcooking. And always carve against the grain to maximise tenderness in every slice.

Topside of Beef Recipes

Topside of beef isn’t just for Sunday roasts. These two recipes from George Ryle show how rare roasted topside can be used to create vibrant, seasonal dishes that go beyond tradition.

The first recipe, Topside of Beef with Radicchio, Hazelnut and Parmesan Salad, is a bold alternative to the usual roast. Far from being a side, this spring salad puts rare roasted topside centre stage, with a punchy dressing and layered textures that make it a satisfying main in its own right.

The second recipe, Rare Roast Topside of Beef with Tonnato Dressing, takes inspiration from vitello tonnato, the classic Piedmontese dish of cold veal with a tuna dressing. Here, rare roast topside replaces the veal, served cold with a tonnato-style sauce made from tuna, anchovies and capers. It’s a superb centrepiece for a summer lunch — simple, elegant and full of flavour.

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Jorge hails from the Black Mountains where he grew up surrounded by hardy, native livestock. His passion for cookery was sparked by his upbringing, but developed and intensified alongside his respect for British breeds, and zeal for nose-to-tail eating.

In 2009 trained chef Jorge launched Swaledale in Haworth, and took his native-breed led whole-carcass butchery philosophy to high profile restaurateurs. Jorge is a passionate procurer and hanger of meat, and is keen to showcase the sublime taste and texture that comes from ageing, higher fat content, and an older carcass. Jorge proudly invests in native-breeds, as maintaining their market demand is crucial to their very survival.

Jorge studied Creative Writing at Leeds University, and is a former Welsh athletics champion. He lives with his wife, ceramicist Amy Thomas, and their three children – Fynn, Bea, and Matilda – on a remote grouse moor in West Yorkshire.

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  • Do you love bacon? Here’s our in house science and history teacher, @grylos, talking osmosis, salt, and the slow work of dry curing bacon.
  • Burns Night, 25 January. Two pastry wrapped tributes to Robert Burns. Made with chef Josh Whitehead of @finer_pleasures. A haggis sausage roll with coarse cut native breed pork. A hot water crust pie of mutton and lamb haggis, oats, onions and spice. Food for a cold night.
@swaledalebutchers
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We have all seen the videos. A chicken arrives. Five neat strokes of a knife. It falls apart as if by magic. That comes from thirty years at the block. Most of us do not have that. So here is a slightly more Radio 4 approach. A calm, sensible way to take a good chicken and break it down at home. Nothing flashy. Just understanding the joints, working with the bone, and giving each part the respect it deserves. When you do that, you open up a week (almost) of meals. Breasts cooked one way. Legs another. A carcass that becomes stock rather than waste. More on that to follow. The only things you truly need are a great chicken and a proper knife. Ours is a beautiful honsuki knife kindly supplied by @kitchenprovisions and it does the job expertly. Sharp. Balanced. Delightful. Watch along as @grylos talks it through.
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Mutton has earned itself an unfair reputation. For centuries it was simply the meat we ate. Lamb is, in many ways, the modern preference, made possible by refrigeration and global trade. Before that shift, it would have made little sense to slaughter an animal before it had lived fully and bred. Sheep were kept for wool and continuity, and when their working life was complete, they became mutton. It was part of a cycle. Practical and sustaining. What changed was not the meat, but our habits. Yet not all mutton is equal. Age alone does not create depth. Mutton reflects the life it has lived. When sheep are kept longer and allowed to graze widely on varied forage, moorland grasses and herbal leys, time and terrain build complexity into the muscle and fat. That is the mutton we favour and source. Darker, firmer and deeper in flavour, shaped by prolonged grazing on moorland such as this, just outside Skipton. There was once a rhythm between wool on our backs and mutton on our tables. Perhaps that rhythm still makes sense.
Mutton has earned itself an unfair reputation. For centuries it was simply the meat we ate. Lamb is, in many ways, the modern preference, made possible by refrigeration and global trade. Before that shift, it would have made little sense to slaughter an animal before it had lived fully and bred. Sheep were kept for wool and continuity, and when their working life was complete, they became mutton. It was part of a cycle. Practical and sustaining. What changed was not the meat, but our habits. Yet not all mutton is equal. Age alone does not create depth. Mutton reflects the life it has lived. When sheep are kept longer and allowed to graze widely on varied forage, moorland grasses and herbal leys, time and terrain build complexity into the muscle and fat. That is the mutton we favour and source. Darker, firmer and deeper in flavour, shaped by prolonged grazing on moorland such as this, just outside Skipton. There was once a rhythm between wool on our backs and mutton on our tables. Perhaps that rhythm still makes sense.
Mutton has earned itself an unfair reputation. For centuries it was simply the meat we ate. Lamb is, in many ways, the modern preference, made possible by refrigeration and global trade. Before that shift, it would have made little sense to slaughter an animal before it had lived fully and bred. Sheep were kept for wool and continuity, and when their working life was complete, they became mutton. It was part of a cycle. Practical and sustaining. What changed was not the meat, but our habits. Yet not all mutton is equal. Age alone does not create depth. Mutton reflects the life it has lived. When sheep are kept longer and allowed to graze widely on varied forage, moorland grasses and herbal leys, time and terrain build complexity into the muscle and fat. That is the mutton we favour and source. Darker, firmer and deeper in flavour, shaped by prolonged grazing on moorland such as this, just outside Skipton. There was once a rhythm between wool on our backs and mutton on our tables. Perhaps that rhythm still makes sense.
@swaledalebutchers
@swaledalebutchers
•
Follow
Mutton has earned itself an unfair reputation. For centuries it was simply the meat we ate. Lamb is, in many ways, the modern preference, made possible by refrigeration and global trade. Before that shift, it would have made little sense to slaughter an animal before it had lived fully and bred. Sheep were kept for wool and continuity, and when their working life was complete, they became mutton. It was part of a cycle. Practical and sustaining. What changed was not the meat, but our habits. Yet not all mutton is equal. Age alone does not create depth. Mutton reflects the life it has lived. When sheep are kept longer and allowed to graze widely on varied forage, moorland grasses and herbal leys, time and terrain build complexity into the muscle and fat. That is the mutton we favour and source. Darker, firmer and deeper in flavour, shaped by prolonged grazing on moorland such as this, just outside Skipton. There was once a rhythm between wool on our backs and mutton on our tables. Perhaps that rhythm still makes sense.
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@swaledalebutchers
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Kindred spirits. Hot pans. Spiced mutton. Swaledale x Canton Arms supper. Wednesday 25 February. To book email Thecantonarms@gmail.com @cantonarms
2 weeks ago
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@swaledalebutchers
@swaledalebutchers
•
Follow
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Ask yourself this. When did you last have a really good pork chop? This is why we keep coming back to it. Native, rare breed pork. Dry aged on the bone. Proper depth of flavour. Nothing like the pale, wet stuff you see elsewhere. These are our Pork Chops with Rosemary and Anchovy Butter. Two thick, rindless chops. Two discs of handmade compound butter. Anchovy, rosemary, lemon zest, a little shallot. Old friends. It works.
@swaledalebutchers
@swaledalebutchers
•
Follow
Ask yourself this. When did you last have a really good pork chop? This is why we keep coming back to it. Native, rare breed pork. Dry aged on the bone. Proper depth of flavour. Nothing like the pale, wet stuff you see elsewhere. These are our Pork Chops with Rosemary and Anchovy Butter. Two thick, rindless chops. Two discs of handmade compound butter. Anchovy, rosemary, lemon zest, a little shallot. Old friends. It works.
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@swaledalebutchers
@swaledalebutchers
•
Follow
Fancy a bit of a butcher’s tip? Or a hack, if you will. Well look no further. Here, @grylos, gets creative with a joint of boned and rolled beef rump, creating three, totally different meals, from the one piece of meat. A great example of some leftfield thinking and the perfect way to add a little variety into your weekly meal planning. Along the spectrum from raw to medium, your week could go a little something like this; tartare and toast lightly rubbed with garlic for lunch on Wednesday; steak night on Friday night, with chips, good red wine and a bowl of bearnaise; a roast dinner on Sunday. Bob’s your uncle, Fanny’s your aunt and a carnivorous and hugely satisfying week of eating is complete. All that from a single rolled rump of beef! A life hack if I ever saw one… Did you know that our rumps won 3 stars at the Great Taste Awards? 3-star rump, you can’t argue with that!
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@swaledalebutchers
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•
Follow
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Burns Night, 25 January. Two pastry wrapped tributes to Robert Burns. Made with chef Josh Whitehead of @finer_pleasures. A haggis sausage roll with coarse cut native breed pork. A hot water crust pie of mutton and lamb haggis, oats, onions and spice. Food for a cold night.
Burns Night, 25 January. Two pastry wrapped tributes to Robert Burns. Made with chef Josh Whitehead of @finer_pleasures. A haggis sausage roll with coarse cut native breed pork. A hot water crust pie of mutton and lamb haggis, oats, onions and spice. Food for a cold night.
Burns Night, 25 January. Two pastry wrapped tributes to Robert Burns. Made with chef Josh Whitehead of @finer_pleasures. A haggis sausage roll with coarse cut native breed pork. A hot water crust pie of mutton and lamb haggis, oats, onions and spice. Food for a cold night.
Burns Night, 25 January. Two pastry wrapped tributes to Robert Burns. Made with chef Josh Whitehead of @finer_pleasures. A haggis sausage roll with coarse cut native breed pork. A hot water crust pie of mutton and lamb haggis, oats, onions and spice. Food for a cold night.
Burns Night, 25 January. Two pastry wrapped tributes to Robert Burns. Made with chef Josh Whitehead of @finer_pleasures. A haggis sausage roll with coarse cut native breed pork. A hot water crust pie of mutton and lamb haggis, oats, onions and spice. Food for a cold night.
Burns Night, 25 January. Two pastry wrapped tributes to Robert Burns. Made with chef Josh Whitehead of @finer_pleasures. A haggis sausage roll with coarse cut native breed pork. A hot water crust pie of mutton and lamb haggis, oats, onions and spice. Food for a cold night.
@swaledalebutchers
@swaledalebutchers
•
Follow
Burns Night, 25 January. Two pastry wrapped tributes to Robert Burns. Made with chef Josh Whitehead of @finer_pleasures. A haggis sausage roll with coarse cut native breed pork. A hot water crust pie of mutton and lamb haggis, oats, onions and spice. Food for a cold night.
1 month ago
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