Finding beef for rare roast beef sandwiches

For rare roast beef sandwiches with a cold-steak-like result, the most frequently suggested approach was to roast a round cut at home, chill it, and slice it thin. For a ready-made option, look for a butcher, deli, or grocery store that roasts its own beef. These suggestions come from a cooking discussion among home cooks, whose preferences differed on store-bought beef but leaned toward making it at home for more control over the result.

Which cuts did home cooks recommend?

Eye of round, top round, and round roast came up repeatedly as choices for homemade sandwich beef. The advice centered on preparing a roast, refrigerating it, and cutting thin slices rather than relying on packaged or deli-sliced meat.

The discussion supported those cuts as options, not one winning cut or a single agreed-upon recipe. If choosing among them, keep the recommendation at that level: each was suggested for homemade roast beef, but the thread did not establish that one consistently produced a better sandwich than the others.

• Eye of round: Repeatedly suggested for roasting at home and slicing for sandwiches.
• Top round: Another repeatedly mentioned choice for the same approach.
• Round roast: Also recommended, sometimes without a more specific cut name.

Many home cooks described making roast beef as manageable, though one reader found the idea intimidating. The useful distinction is between choosing a cut and choosing a cooking method. There was substantial agreement about trying a round cut, but less agreement about exactly how to cook it.

Where should you look for ready-made roast beef?

If home roasting is not appealing, ask a local butcher, deli, or grocery store whether it makes its own roast beef. Multiple people suggested seeking out an in-house roast rather than limiting the search to packaged options.

That is a sourcing suggestion, not a promise that every house-roasted product will be red or rare. One person reported inconsistent results from a grocery store’s own roast beef. Local availability also matters, since recommendations for particular delis and regional businesses may not translate to another area.

Store-bought preferences differed. A particular deli-style product received repeated praise, while other cooks favored local sources or homemade beef. The discussion did not establish a single store-bought choice that reliably met everyone’s expectations.

The practical question to ask is whether the business roasts its own beef. That directly follows the advice in the discussion and helps distinguish an in-house option from the packaged or deli-sliced products that prompted many cooks to recommend making their own.

How do you get thin sandwich slices?

Thin slicing was one of the clearest points of agreement. Some home cooks also recommended chilling the roast before slicing, making refrigeration part of their approach to preparing beef for sandwiches.

One person specifically suggested chilling the roast overnight and slicing it the next day. That was an individual method rather than an agreed-upon waiting period, but it illustrates the roast-first, slice-later approach described by others.

• Refrigerate the homemade roast before slicing, as some cooks recommended.
• A home meat slicer was one suggested tool.
• Slicing by hand was also suggested, so the discussion did not treat a slicer as required equipment.

Chilling a homemade roast and slicing it thin was repeated advice for cold roast beef sandwiches. The emphasis was on preparing the beef and getting thin slices, not on buying a particular piece of equipment.

Should you roast it or use sous vide?

Oven roasting and sous vide both appeared in the discussion, but the methods and target temperatures differed. A meat thermometer was suggested for home roasting. The thread did not supply one agreed-upon cooking schedule to apply to every roast.

Sous vide was suggested by multiple home cooks as another way to make the beef at home. One suggestion specified 131-135° for 18 hours, followed by cooling in an ice bath. That timing and temperature belonged to one person’s method, not a consensus recipe.

The same caution applies to the oven-roasting suggestions: individual cooks supplied different temperatures and approaches. Those examples show the range of methods people used, but they should not be combined into a new recipe or presented as interchangeable instructions.

For someone deciding between the two approaches, the discussion offers options rather than a verdict. Its stronger shared advice concerns the overall preparation: use a suggested roast cut, chill it, and slice it thin.

What should you try first?

Start with an eye of round, top round, or round roast if making the beef yourself appeals to you. Roasting at home, chilling, and thinly slicing was the strongest shared recommendation for having more control over the sandwich beef.

If you prefer to buy it ready-made, begin by asking a local butcher or deli whether it roasts its own beef. Keep expectations conditional: the discussion identified useful sources and approaches, but did not establish one brand, cut, or method as a universal answer.