When you’re craving a next-level roast for your Sunday dinner table or a celebration, you can’t go wrong with this bacon-wrapped beef tenderloin roasted to perfection. With the festive season in mind, this luxurious, tender beef tenderloin roast is the perfect centrepiece.
Not much could make a perfectly cooked, juicy beef tenderloin better than it already is – except bacon. Fatty bacon adds extra richness, umami and indulgence to the lean beef and makes it even more flavourful and even more special. This tenderloin turns out delicious, oh-so-tender and totally lush!
Try this steak with peppercorn sauce too.
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Ingredients & substitutions
There’s only a very short list of ingredients for this bacon beef tenderloin. While tenderloin can be pricey, it’s worth it for a special occasion or holiday meal like Christmas or Thanksgiving. Slices of bacon are wrapped around the beef before roasting and the fatty parts from the bacon melt into the beef, seasoning and flavouring it even more.
Beef tenderloin: Also known as a whole beef fillet, you’re looking for a centre cut piece of beef tenderloin here. The centre cut, also known as the eye fillet roast is the part that is used to create individual eye fillets (aka filet mignon). If you can, buy the whole tenderloin and trim the centre piece for this recipe yourself, saving the off cuts for other recipes (like these beef kabobs) – it’s more economical this way.
A whole beef tenderloin is thick at one end and tapers to a very thin end the other. The cut used for a roast tenderloin such as this is somewhere in the middle and weighs around 900g-1.2kg. I often get my tenderloin when it’s on special at my local supermarket and I know it’s very good quality but you can go all out and get your tenderloin from a butcher – this will cost more though. You’ll need to trim away any sinew or silverskin which isn’t difficult (if buying from a butcher, they can do this for you). Buying the whole tenderloin is more economical as you’ll get more meals from it from the off cuts.
Bacon: Try to get long rashers or thinly sliced bacon so they wrap right around your tenderloin. You can roll them out slightly to lengthen if you need to.
Other than that, this beef tenderloin is just seasoned with Dijon mustard, salt, pepper and fresh thyme sprigs. The mustard also helps the bacon stick. If you’d like to, you can add 1-2 minced garlic cloves to the Dijon too. If you don’t like or are allergic to mustard, use softened butter in it’s place.
You can use a different herb if you like (or none at all) like fresh rosemary or oregano. Both work really well here.
How to make bacon wrapped beef tenderloin
Roasting up a show-stopping, centre-piece roast like this is actually very easy. First and foremost, you’ll need a meat thermometer if you want to get that perfect doneness.
Jump to the recipe card for full ingredients and instructions.
1. Trim your tenderloin
If you have purchased a whole beef fillet, start by trimming it. Cut away the very thick end and the thin tail end so that you have just the centre cut piece which is mostly the same thickness all the way along.
Next, cut away the silverskin. With something that cooks in less than an hour, that silverskin is never going to break down and it’s too tough to eat enjoyably. Start by getting a paring knife or utility knife just under the surface of the silverskin, then holding it with one hand, drag the knife along, angled up toward the silverskin, until you get to the end. Then do the same in the other direction. Don’t try to do the whole thickness of silverskin in one go – just get your knife under a small portion of it, somewhere in the middle, then repeat the process as needed.
2. Season the beef tenderloin
Brush the tenderloin all over with the mustard, then sprinkle over the salt, pepper and thyme leaves.
3. Wrap it in bacon
Everything’s better with bacon. Line up long rashers of thinly cut bacon on a sheet of plastic wrap or baking paper, overlapping them slightly and to a length matching the tenderloin.
Place the seasoned tenderloin on top.
Roll the bacon around the beef using the paper or plastic wrap to help.
4. Roast
Take your bacon wrapped beef tenderloin out of the fridge at least 30 minutes prior to roasting. Unwrap it and transfer it to a wire rack on a baking sheet. After the 30 minutes, roast for 35-40 minutes or until done to your preference (use the table below to help you).
There is no need to sear the bacon wrapped beef tenderloin. If you try it, the bacon wrapping just falls apart as you try to turn it in the pan. You’ll still get crispy bacon just from roasting it.
5. Rest
You must rest your roast beef fillet for 10-15 minutes. This helps the juices redistribute throughout the meat keeping it juicy and moist when you serve. Don’t worry, it won’t be cold, it will still be lovely and hot inside. If you cut into it before resting, the juices will just run straight out when you carve it.
Internal temperature of cooked beef
For this bacon wrapped beef tenderloin we’re looking for a medium or medium-rare for the most juicy and tender result. Once a big cut like this comes out of the oven, the residual heat will continue to cook the meat (this is known as “carry over cooking”), so you’ll need to remove it before it’s reached the desired serving temperature. What’s more, the longer it’s been cooking the more the internal temperature will rise.
An instant-read thermometer is essential when you want the perfect finish to your meat. Use the guide below to help you decide when to remove it from the oven. I don’t recommend cooking this cut to well done or the outside will just be tough.
The beef in these photos is medium.
| Desired doneness | Remove from oven at; | Serve the beef at; |
| Rare | 44-46°C/~115°F | 48-52°C/~122°F |
| Medium rare | 49-50°C/~120°F | 55-59°C/~131°F |
| Medium | 52-53°C/~126°F | 63-65°C/~145°F |
| Medium well | 55-56°C/~131°F | 66-69°C/~151°F |
The sauce
Don’t discard the cooking juices. A combination of smoky bacon fat and juices and beefy juices it’s absolutely incredible. You can use it as is to drizzle over the slices of beef on the dinner plates or make a sauce using the cooking juices.
Add it to some butter, beef stock, maybe spiked with a little red wine or balsamic vinegar, and use a cornstarch slurry if you need to, to thicken it up. Or instead of the cornstarch, use some heavy cream to create a rich, creamy sauce.
Storage
If you have leftovers of your bacon wrapped tenderloin, it stores in the fridge and reheats really well to be almost as tasty as when you first served it.
- Refrigerate (3-4 days): Store the leftover beef tenderloin, sliced or unsliced in an airtight container in the fridge for 3-4 days.
- Freeze (up to 3 months): Longer than 4 days after serving, you should freeze the beef. Cut it into portioned slices, and freeze in an airtight container or freezer safe bags with the air squeezed out, for up to 3 months.
- To reheat: Longer than 4 days after serving, you should freeze the beef. Cut it into portioned slices, and freeze in an airtight container or freezer safe bags with the air squeezed out, for up to 3 months.
What to serve with beef tenderloin
I served this one here with a green leafy salad and these creamy garlic mushrooms. You could put together a celebratory feast with a couple of these side dishes;
More recipes you’ll love (celebration-worthy)
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Ingredients
- 1 kg centre-cut beef tenderloin / beef fillet (~2 ¼lb)
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard (notes 1)
- 1 ½ teaspoons coarse salt
- ½ teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
- 1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves stalks discarded (notes 1)
- 10-14 rashers thin streaky bacon
For best results, always weigh ingredients where a weight is provided
Equipment
- Baking paper or plastic wrap to wrap the beef
Instructions
- Important – plan ahead: Take the tenderloin out of the fridge 30 minutes prior to roasting. It can be chilled for up to 2 hours once wrapped (see step 6) which helps to get the salt to penetrate into the meat more.
- Preheat oven to 220°C (200°C fan forced) / 430°F . Line a roasting pan with foil and place a rack on top, if you have one.
- Place the beef onto a large chopping board, then trim it of any sinew / silver skin by carefully sliding a small sharp knife underneath, angled upwards. See more detailed info in post.
- Brush the Dijon mustard all over the beef. Sprinkle over the salt, pepper and thyme leaves. Roll the beef over the board to pick up any seasoning left on the board.
- On a long sheet of baking paper or plastic wrap, line up 8-10 rashers of bacon side by side and slightly overlapping (the width of the overlapped bacon should match the length of your tenderloin). Use a rolling pin to stretch roll and stretch them out a bit so they’ll wrap all the way around the tenderloin.
- Place the beef on one side of the bacon and use the paper or plastic wrap to help you roll it up. At this point you can chill it for up to 2 hours, which will help the salt penetrate into the meat, or you can proceed straight away.
- Take the beef out of the fridge 30 minutes before cooking. Unwrap it and transfer the beef to the roasting pan on the rack, bacon seam-side down. After 30 minutes out of the fridge, bake for 35-45 minutes or until done to your liking. If the bacon looks like it’s browning or crisping too quickly, place a little foil over it until it finishes cooking.(The beef will carry over cook as it rests. To test how done the beef is, insert a digital meat thermometer into the centre – it should read 46C/115F for rare, 50C/120F for medium-rare, 53C/126F for medium and 56C/131F for medium-well – the temperature will continue to rise as it rests.)
- Take it out of the oven. Transfer it to a board to rest and cover with foil. Rest for 15 minutes before carving to allow the juices to redistribute.
- Once carved, drizzle over the resting juices and the juices from the pan.
- Please take a moment to leave a comment & rating. It's appreciated and so helpful.
Notes
- Tablespoons: I use a standard Australian 20ml tablespoon (equal to 4 teaspoons). Check yours before measuring.
- Nutrition details are approximate only – scroll below the recipe to find the full nutritional information.
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