The best roast beef is savory, juicy, meaty, and tender. Sliced roast beef should be highly stackable and not too thick. The flavor should be complex but maintain a simple, organic meat flavor that delights. Ideally, we don’t want the meatiness to be overpowered by an excessive amount of salt and seasonings, either. Give us straightforward beef with just the right alchemy of seasoning.
Good roast beef is hard to come by and even harder to find at the grocery store. So, for our taste tests, we decided to include nationally available, sliced-to-order deli meats as well as prepackaged meats. The butcher is your friend, and the briskets they have at the deli are the closest you’ll get to the good stuff. We also included canned roast beef in our most recent roast beef taste test because it exists and therefore it deserves to be ranked.
We judged the sliced roast beef on quality, first and foremost. Most deli roast beef is made from the top round, but occasionally you’ll see roast beef made from the rib roast, bottom round roast, or even the tri-tip or strip-loin. Regardless of the cut, the best deli roast beef should have a steak-like quality, while still being somewhat processed like a deli meat. Still, we don’t want a homogeneous, mystery meat aesthetic. It should feel natural and taste flavorful.
We judged the canned roast beef on flavor and texture. Ideally, roast beef in a can should taste like canned pot roast in gravy or like corned beef without any of the corning spices. We won’t pretend to know what people are actually doing with canned roast beef, but whatever their intentions, the canned roast beef they buy should taste like real beef and it shouldn’t immediately fall apart into mush.
What’s the best roast beef you can find at the grocery store—sliced or in a can? Check out our list.
- Butterfield Farms Roast Beef in Beef Broth
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You get real hunks of beef in broth with this canned roast beef. The chunks look a bit like canned corned beef—but the flavor is pure, salty, not-pickled beef. It’s also similar to the beef you get in a good canned beef stew. But, again, without any of the seasoning or vegetables or gravy. If you arrived at this page because you were searching for roast beef in a can, then you probably have some idea of what you want to do with it. But if not, I think this would be great in soup—just add the meat to some beef broth with some frozen vegetables and alphabet pasta for a quick and tasty dinner—or use it in stroganoff. Or stash it in your earthquake kit for some hearty emergency protein. —Justine Sterling
Credit: Liv Averett / Walmart
- Hereford Canned Roast Beef with Gravy
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Looking for canned roast beef with gravy? Buy Hereford. The beef tastes meaty. The texture is exactly what you want out of roast beef in a can—tender, not chewy, but not mushy either—and the gravy offers moisture and just enough flavor. If you warmed this up and glopped it onto a pile of mashed potatoes, I’d happily gobble it up. It’s not as good as homemade, but it’s better than what you get on an airplane. —Justine Sterling
Credit: Liv Averett / Amazon
- Columbus Seasoned Roast Beef
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One thing I’ve found through all of our deli meat taste tests (check out our best deli turkey ranking and our best deli ham ranking) is that Columbus’ products have a noticeable funk to them. There’s a fat cap around this roast beef, so there is good fat quality. But the overall flavor is so distinct and interesting. This roast beef is very salty, maybe even egregiously so, but there’s a tangy, pickled flavor as well. It’s odd, funky, and kind of has that “old world” flavor you get from a lot of vinegar. I like it, but it’s not for everybody. It’s decidedly not the best roast beef, but it definitely has the most distinct flavor of the beef on this list. —Danny Palumbo
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Trader Joe’s Seasoned Roast Beef
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Trader Joe’s sliced roast beef has a great, natural texture that makes you feel like this came directly from an animal and not a dubious processing plant. This absolutely had the best texture of the deli roast beef we tried. The meat is also just so damn juicy, almost like the brisket itself was brined, resulting in a burst of incredible seasoned flavor. It’s sliced really thin, too, which makes it the best roast beef for sandwiches, in my opinion. Personally, I like many slices of thin deli meat as opposed to a few thick slabs—thin slices of meat are more flavorful. It ensures tenderness, and it also means there’s more air around the meat in a sandwich, which I believe allows you to experience the taste better. There’s a reason all the great delis serve their sandwiches this way. Good on Trader Joe’s for providing some of the best deli roast beef. —Danny Palumbo
Credit: Sarah Demonteverde
- Castle Wood Reserve Angus Seasoned Roast Beef
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This was the first roast beef I tried in the taste test and it set a wonderful standard. Castle Wood Reserve (sounds like top-shelf alcohol) is juicy, well seasoned, and has excellent flavor. It’s definitely smoky and almost a little sweet, too. The way it’s seasoned and formed, it kind of reminds me of a cured ham like capicola or salami. The roast beef comes rolled in these neat little tubes that look like little meat appetizers, which makes it the best roast beef to keep in the fridge for snacking. Grab a meat tube and go to town. —Danny Palumbo
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Applegate Organics Roast Beef
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This sliced roast beef had the strongest beef flavor of the meats we tried. It’s really thin and has a sort of fragile, breakable texture that feels natural. What horrifies me is the wound up, homogeneous roast beef that’s just too neatly formed. This, though, has character. It strikes me as the type of roast beef that would go great in a French dip—amazing natural beef flavor, a delightful texture, and a salty, meaty taste. Heat this up and put it into some crusty bread to maximize the experience. I will say, it slips on this list of the best roast beef because it is quite wet, and is thus making me say the phrase “wet meat” aloud in my head. Not cool, Applegate. —Danny Palumbo
Credit: Liv Averett / Amazon
- Boar’s Head London Broil
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This London broil has a really great texture that feels natural. With all its pepper and spices, Boar’s Head London Broil roast beef is dinner roast beef. It would do well on a plate with some mashed potatoes. It’s just got such a great flavor and texture that you can eat it all on its own (with some gravy, naturally). It’s the best London broil to enjoy like a homemade roast. —Danny Palumbo
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Boar’s Head Deluxe
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Oooooh wee, this roast beef is rare. It has a carnal, reddish hue like someone sliced it directly from a prime rib at a carving station. And although the fat cap has been removed, there is still some good fat marbled throughout the meat. Boar’s Head Deluxe roast beef is cooked with garlic and herbs, and it feels lower on the sodium scale. Personally, I love the absence of salt in this meat, as you really get to savor the pure, beefy flavor. Pricey per pound (it’s $18 per pound by us), but man, it’s worth it. My mouth is salivating all over again while writing this, and while it could just be that I’m hungover, Boar’s Head just makes some of the best deli roast beef. —Danny Palumbo
Credit: Liv Averett / Instacart
- Primo Taglio London Broil
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This London broil roast beef (which is literally broiled and cut against the grain in thin slices) is so damn flavorful and meaty compared to other sliced roast beef brands on this list. It has a nice layer of fat, too, which I appreciate in a roast beef; it makes it feel like the slices were cut from a real quality piece of meat. Primo Taglio London Broil roast beef also has a nice peppery kick to it. When determining the best roast beef, this really has everything I want: it’s savory and seasoned, with a quality, organic, meaty texture. It’s a simple thing, but the best roast beef really just needs to taste like beef, and Primo Taglio’s London Broil nails it. —Danny Palumbo
Credit: Liv Averett / Vons
Best Canned in Broth
Best Canned in Gravy
Best Funky Flavor
Best Texture
Best for Snacking
Best for a French Dip
Best for Dinner
Best Boar’s Head
Best of the Best
Other products we tried: Whole Foods Seasoned, Member’s Mark, Good & Gather Ultra Thin, Oscar Mayer Deli Fresh, Dietz & Watson London Broil, Hillshire Farm, Great Value, Kroger, Boar’s Head Low Sodium, Private Selection Angus, Great Value Roast Beef in Beef Broth, Dietz & Watson Homestyle Roast Beef, Walmart Freshness Guaranteed Medium Roast Beef, Land O’ Frost Roast Beef, Kroger Canned Roast Beef with Gravy
Thoughts? Questions? Complete disagreement? Leave a comment!