Traeger Prime Rib Roast
Our Traeger Smoked Prime Rib Roast is a boneless rib roast seasoned with rosemary, salt, pepper, and garlic, and then cooked in a pan on the pellet grill or smoker with mirepoix and au jus. You'll never go back to the oven version once you try this easy Traeger recipe.
Smoked Prime Rib Recipe
If you've ever been in the kitchen on a holiday and have lamented about not having double ovens, let me just stop you right there.
Spoiler alert:
You don't need double ovens if you get a Traeger.
Prime rib on the Traeger is one of those dishes that makes backyard cooking feel serious and satisfying. You'll start with a big rib roast rubbed with simple seasonings, and then let the steady smoke and heat from your Traeger work its magic.
What you get is a perfectly cooked roast with a smoky crust that's perfect for a special dinner or holiday meal. It's straightforward if you've ever cooked a roast before, and the combo of low and slow followed by higher heat gives you great color without drying out or overcooking the interior.
Seasoning is simple but effective. Salt, pepper, onion, garlic, and rosemary bring out the beef's natural flavor without overwhelming it.
Taking your roast out of the fridge ahead of time helps it cook more evenly from edge to center.
Why You'll Love This Dish
- Smoky Flavor - Deep, savory smoke from the Traeger that pairs great with classic seasonings.
- Simple Seasoning - Easy rub with pantry spices that taste rich and balanced.
- Juicy Interior - Cooked low first to preserve moisture and then finished at higher heat for crust.
- Homemade Au Jus - Pan juices strained into a rich sauce that's perfect with slices.
More Easy Traeger Recipes here!
Recipe Shopping List
Wondering if you have to hit the store? Here's the list of items you'll need to make this recipe. For specific amounts, please refer to the printable recipe card at the bottom of the post.
- Boneless Rib Roast - The star of the dish; choose good quality beef with even marbling.
- OWYD SPG - Our custom OWYD SPG uses smoked salt and pepper that's the perfect grind for this recipe. Pick up a couple of jars, stat. If they won't get here in time for your roast, you can use a combo of salt, pepper, and garlic. I like 2 parts salt and garlic to 1 part pepper, but follow your heart there.
- Onion Powder - Sweet depth that plays well with smoke.
- Rosemary - Earthy herbal note that pairs with beef.
- Chopped Onion - Aromatic base in the roasting pan.
- Chopped Carrots - Sweetness for the pan juices.
- Chopped Celery - Adds savory balance in the pan.
- Beef Broth - Turns roasted veggies and juices into au jus.
Buy your Snake River Farms Wagyu Prime Rib Roast here!
How To Make This Recipe
This is just the overview so you can see what you're actually getting into here. When you are cooking, you'll want to use the full recipe at the bottom of the page.
- Prep Roast - Pull roast from fridge an hour before cooking.
- Make Rub - Combine salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic, and rosemary; coat roast.
- Set Up Pan - Place onions, carrots, and celery in a high‑sided pan and set roast on top.
- Smoke Low - Cook in your preheated Traeger at 250° for one hour, then add beef broth.
- Finish & Rest - Turn heat higher until internal temp reaches 120°, then rest 20 minutes before slicing; strain pan juices for au jus.
Share your cooks in our Easy Traeger Recipes FB Group!
Recipe FAQ
It depends. Never go by TIME when cooking a big roast. Always always always go by temp. That's the only way to get consistent results.
For a medium-rare roast, pull it when the roast reaches 115-120 degrees. It'll continue cooking for a bit even after you pull it, so for that delicious color don't leave it too long on the grill.
We really love the Traeger Gourmet blend, but I've also used Hickory and Cherry pellets with great success. Use what you have, and it'll be delicious.
We like to smoke ours at 250° for about an hour, and then crank it up to high until it reaches 120° inside using an internal probe. The end pieces will always be more done than the middle pieces, especially if you are cooking a very large roast.
You're going to find a LOT of different opinions on this out there though, and most of them will most likely be some degree of "right" and will result in a delicious smoked prime rib. Do your thing!
As long as you pull the roast when the internal temp reaches 120, you're going to love it.
If you aren't a fan of medium-rare prime rib, I promise I won't give you any crap about it...unless we are in person. Then all bets are off. 😉
But really - you have some options if you like a rib roast that is cooked a little more.
1. Cook it a little longer. Pull the roast at 130 if you want the entire thing to be a little more towards medium & medium-well.
2. Still, pull it at 120°, but give it a 30-second bath in some hot au jus right before servings.
3. Pull at 120°, but sear individual slices of rib roast in a blazing hot cast-iron skillet on the stovetop.
15+ Leftover Prime Rib Ideas here!
Serve This With
Sides are an important part of any prime rib feast! Here are some options from OWYD that are great options.
Salad
Pasta
Rice
Potatoes
More great BEEF recipes here!
Reader Reviews
"I tried this my first time ever doing Prime Rib; it came out fantastic."
- Willie
Recipes Using Leftover Prime Rib
Pin For Later
Traeger Prime Rib Roast
Prime Rib on the Traeger is another must try. Like most things cooked on the T, it takes it to the next level. If you've cooked a prime rib roast before, then this will be a breeze.
Ingredients
- 5 pound boneless rib roast
- 4 tablespoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon coarse ground black pepper
- 1 ½ teaspoon onion powder
- 1 teaspoon granulated garlic
- 1 teaspoon rosemary
- 1 cup chopped onion
- ½ cup chopped carrots
- ½ cup chopped celery
- 2 cup beef broth
Recommended Products
As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programs, I earn from qualifying purchases.
Instructions
- Take the roast out of your fridge at least an hour before cooking. Preheat your Traeger to 250°.
- Mix the salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic, and rosemary in a bowl and mix it all together with a spoon to create your rub. Coat your entire rib roast with the rub. Make sure to use it all. After the rib roast is coated, set it aside.
- Next, combine the onions, carrots, and celery in the bottom of a 9" X 13" high sided cake pan. Place the rib roast on top of the vegetables in the cake pan.
- Put the pan with the roast in it onto the center of your pre-heated Traeger. Cook at 250° for one hour.
- After one hour, pour the two cups of beef broth into the bottom of the cake pan.
- Turn your Traeger up high and let it cook until the internal temperature reaches 120°.
- Pull the roast off of the grill when it hits 120° and let it rest for twenty minutes before slicing.
- Pour the juices from the bottom of the pan through a strainer, skim the fat off of the top, and use the remaining juice for your au jus.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
12Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 721Total Fat: 60gSaturated Fat: 18gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 27gCholesterol: 207mgSodium: 2450mgCarbohydrates: 3gFiber: 1gSugar: 1gProtein: 43g
These photos just made my mouth water. Thanks for sharing the details, I'm definitely going to try and make it myself!
Thanks, Kelly!! I appreciate that! Let me know if you try it!!
I made the prime rib. And it received rave reviews from our guests. We served salt jacket baked potatoes and sauteed kale. Put the potatoes in on the 2nd hour temp increase. Pulled meat at 130 degrees. Let roast stand while potatoes finished 15 minutes.
Thanks
Great! Thanks so much for stopping by and letting me know!
What flavor pellets do you use?
Whatever we have on hand. I, personally, don't notice a huge difference between the pellet varieties.
Any difference or preference on bone in or no bone?
People say the bone lends more flavor to the end result, but it is prime rib so there's a whole heap of flavor there regardless. Personally, I prefer with the bone because we slow roast them until the meat is fall-off-the-bone tender, and then I use them in soup broth too which is one of my favorite things, ever.
Under instruction 1 it says take roast out of oven 1 hour before starting. Is this suppose to mean the refrigerator?
😀 YESSSSS! Good grief! Sorry about that. Fixing it now!
We have 4 Traegers and now a huge Yoder too. Ridiculous .. ???. But I’m going to try your recipe for our Easter roast. ??????
Is there a ballpark of how long it takes to get it to 120 internally on high after the first hour? Trying to time everything out for tomorrow.
I really couldn't guess. It depends on the roast and the grill, so I'd hate to guess wrong. Hope it turned out amazing!
@Nicole Johnson, Just tell her how long yours took, a ball park 2 hours 24 hours?
Nah. 😀 Like I said in the previous comments, different roasts and different grills mean that the time isn't predictable. If I tell her an hour, and then after another hour she checks and the roast is WAY over temp, guess who is getting an angry comment about having an overcooked roast. 😉
Always cook to temp and not to time when it comes to beef, especially.
@Nicole Johnson, love the recipe but this is so pretentious to be so stubborn to not give a “ballpark.” Like ffs, you could’ve at least answered how long it took
Yours. I think people are asking if it’s like a Boston Butt in which case maybe can be over night, or like over the coarse of a morning(2-7 hours). It’s common place for articles to “ballpark” ig “around 35 minutes per pound until target temp is reached.” We understand to cook to temperature but it’s helpful to know a round about—we gonna be cooking all
Day and night Or several hours
Well, that's the thing, Chase - I've made many of these roasts and the time it has taken to get to the proper finished temp varies so widely, it isn't even worth ballparking. It never fails that even with all the caveats, if I say, "Cook to temp but ballpark is 15 minutes per pound", at least a few people will wreck their (expensive) roasts by ignoring the "Cook to temp" instructions and using the ballpark time. I've been doing this for over a dozen years. You can give all the ballpark times you want on your recipe blog, but here, I usually don't. Merry Christmas! 😉
@Chase, Well if you just pay attention to the directions it says cook time 2 hours. So if we are being honest here a smart individual would venture to say roughly around 2 hours because that’s what it says. ?
If I follow the above instructions and have the same size roasts. How long after the one hour 250* time until the roast would reach the 130* temp? Thanks
It is really impossible to guess. Even if the roast is the same size, it can cook at different rates depending on the makeup / marbling / etc. The best thing to do is to keep a probe in the roast so you can monitor temps without opening the grill.
@Dan, 120 for med rare
When you say turn to “High”, what temperature would that be? Thanks.
As high as it'll go. 😀 We crank it up all the way and hope it gets to 425-450°.
Love the write up. HATE THE ADS!!! Had to be at least 30 I had to close to read..
Ad blockers might be a good option for you. There shouldn't be anything you needed to close out though. The ads should be able to be scrolled by, and unobtrusive. If you are seeing otherwise please feel free to email me a screenshot at orwhateveryoudo@gmail.com!
When we buy a Rib Roast...are we really getting rib roast.
Google.....MEAT GLUE .....Read and View
Buy from a reputable butcher and ask questions if this is a thing that concerns you, and you should be good to go. Meat glue sounds like a thing that I would generally avoid, especially on google. 😀
Going to try it...
Did you use fresh or dried rosemary? Also - have you ever used the "keep warm" function on the traeger for this recipe? Would that dry it out? Thanks!!
You can use dry or fresh rosemary. Either is fine. I've never tried the "Keep Warm" function, so I'm not sure if that would work or not for this. When we transported ours, we wrapped it and put it in a hot cooler and it stayed warm until we served it about an hour or so later.
Hi. We cooked this yesterday on our Traeger and it was delicious. We cooked a small standing rib roast (just 2 of us) and used a meat probe. Smoked at 225 for an hour then increased to 425 for 75 minutes. Took meat off at 130 degrees. A perfect medium rare after resting. Loved the method of cooking the beef over vegetables and stock. I used 2 cups of water with the chopped veggies for the first hour then added the broth for the remaining time. The resulting broth made really flavourful gravy. Thx for the recipe and cooking tip.
That sounds amazing! Thanks for letting us know how it turned out. <3
Instead of making au jus, I blended the mirapoux into the liquid. Made very good gravy, especially on the potatoes I had with it.
Do I have to pull out the meat while I put traeger on high?
You don't have to if you don't want to. We are just pretty particular about our medium-rare temps and that seems to help prevent some of the "gray outside" pink inside that can form!
True confession….I leave the grilling and smoking to my fiancé. This is the first time I used the Traeger (he was golfing) and I was going in BIG. Yep, a prime rib roast and this recipe, I crushed it! Thank you VERY much for the rub recommendation and the tips to carry me through.
This makes my day, Dana. Thank you so much for taking the leap, and I'm so glad that you had a smash hit at dinner! Nice work!
Oh man, I will never live down the fact that I miss-spelled Traeger. Any chance you can do me a solid lolololol
You know it! 😉
Hi! I'm going to try this for Thanksgiving. Here's my delimma, I'm feeding 5 adults and 6 kids. Can I do a larger one, or maybe 2 separate ones???
A larger one would be perfect. I figure on about a pound per person for adults if it is boneless prime rib, and 1 1/2 pounds per person if it is a bone-in cut. Depending on the ages of the kids, I adjust from there. If it were me, I'd be looking for an 8-10 pound prime rib, or two that equal about that amount.
@Nicole Johnson,
What is mirepoix? I am making this for Christmas dinner and I'm super excited because it sounds delicious. Can you confirm if the seasoning measurements needs to be adjusted if I'm making a 6 rib prime rib roast? I've never made a prime rib roast before and I've never used our Traeger for something like this so I'm a total novice. Can you also link the recipe for the au jus? Sorry for all the questions, I just don't want to blow it at Christmas LOL!
Hi Linda! Sure thing! Mirepoix is a mix of carrots, celery, and onion (these items are called for in the recipe). You can increase the seasonings a bit if your roast is larger than the 5 pound roast in the example. It is really flexible though so ballparking it is totally doable. There isn't a recipe for the au jus, it is just the drippings that come off the roast after it has been strained to remove the mirepoix vegetables. It'll be delicious! Just taste it and add some water if it is too salty and has reduced too much, or add some salt if you have the opposite problem. Very flexible. The key to good prime rib is not overcooking it, so use a good thermometer and pull off the grill when the center is about 5 degrees less than your desired finished temp. Merry Christmas!!
Thank you for the quick reply Nicole!! Got my meat today, 15lbs for a 6 rib prime rib roast! Would you recommend tripling the seasoning measurements? Should I marinate it overnight?
Very nice! I would double or triple the seasonings, but the onions/celery/carrots and beef broth amounts are probably fine. You might want to keep some more beef broth on hand to add to the pan in case some evaporates, but a roast that size will also put out its own drippings too, that add to the whole mix. If you have some red wine you can toss a little of that in the pan with the beef broth too! 😉 I mean, you could triple everything and it would be amazing, so if you want lots of au jus, don't let me get in your way, but it probably isn't entirely necessary.
Let me know how it goes! I'd love to see pics! (They are hard to share here, but I'm on Facebook! We have an Easy Traeger Recipes Facebook group, or my regular old Facebook page!
@Nicole Johnson, your traeger prime rib recipe was a massive hit for Christmas Eve Dinner!!! I sent you some pics on your FB page… we should’ve pulled it a little sooner but the traeger thermometer misled us. Luckily we poked it in a few other places with another meat thermometer and it was definitely done… none the less the seasoning was spot on, I doubled the seasoning since I had 15lb 6 rib roast. ? thank you so much for all your guidance!!! I’ll definitely be back for more recipes!!!!
Attempting today. Bones up or bones down? Thanks in advance and Happy Holidays!
We always do bones down. It creates its own "oven rack" of sorts to keep the meat off the bottom of the pan and from braising in the pan juices. Let me know how it goes!
I have a bone-in 5-6lb prime rib. I like mine almost mooing (very rare), so I guess pulling off meat around 110 degrees would more to my liking?
Yup! In the very center you could pull it at 110-115. The ends will be a little more done, but that center piece will basically be blue.
@Cindy, Love mine mooing too! 110 is where I pull mine, wrap it in butcher paper, and put it in my cooler until we are ready to eat, usually 30 minutes.
Hi
Just need to check if the temperature is F or Celsius please.
It is always F here. Thanks for checking!