What about making holiday beef wellington for Christmas dinner this year? It’s made with beef tenderloin, the most tender cut of beef, along with flavourful ingredients such as prosciutto parma ham, rosemary, thyme, mushrooms, shallot, and more. This Thanksgiving or Christmas beef wellington recipe is straightforward to make and it’s a wonderfully decadent meal for the holidays.
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Enjoy delicious beef wellington for Christmas dinner and you will definitely impress everyone at the table with this extra-special meal. Puff pastry encloses a tender cut of beef surrounded by duxelles and prosciutto (parma ham) for an authentic, fabulously festive treat.
Holiday Beef Wellington Ingredients
This classic dish calls for a beef tenderloin fillet, along with garlic, oil, butter, shallot, mushrooms, rosemary, mustard, prosciutto parma ham, puff pastry, eggs, rosemary, and thyme.
The mushroom mixture is made with Portobello mushrooms and porcini mushrooms. You can sub button mushrooms or chestnut mushrooms for the Portobello ones. When they’re minced and combined they taste practically identical anyway. The name given to the resulting mushroom, shallot and herb mixture is ‘mushroom duxelles’.
And if you’re a mushroom fan, like me, you might like to try turkey mushroom soup too or mushroom focaccia bread too.
How to Make Beef Wellington Like a Pro
This Thanksgiving or Christmas beef wellington recipe isn’t hard to make once you know how. And hopefully you will end up with a dish Gordon Ramsay would be proud of!
The first step in making juicy beef tenderloin wrapped in a soft, buttery pastry is to trim the meat. Take an extra fat off and add salt. Let the meat sit out and come to room temperature.
Peel the garlic, cut off the top and wrap it in foil with a little oil. Roast it for half an hour. Mince the mushrooms and shallot and sauté in butter for about 15 minutes, before transferring to a bowl and mixing in the roasted garlic. You can use a food processor to make the mushroom paste if you wish. That is an easy way to get the fine paste.
Put some more butter in the skillet and add the rosemary. Place beef in the skillet. Sear the beef in there for a minute on each side. Brush mustard over the beef.
Assembling the Beef Wellington
Put a puff pastry sheet on a large sheet of cling film on the work surface. Add the parma ham slices on top followed by the mushroom mixture. Add the beef on top of that and roll it up in the puff pastry. Wrap the whole thing in the plastic wrap and give it 20 minutes in the refrigerator. It should be a tight barrel shape.
Brush egg wash over your Thanksgiving or Christmas beef wellington recipe and add salt, freshly ground black pepper, rosemary, and thyme.
Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper. Bake for half an hour in the oven and then let it rest for 10 minutes before serving. It will be golden brown when cooked and have an internal temperature of 135 degrees F for medium rare or 150 degrees F for medium.
How to Serve a Christmas Beef Wellington
Serve this Christmas beef wellington in thick slices. The delicious beef wellingtons sliced are quite the presentation! A beef wellington Christmas dinner menu with delicious sides is going to be a fond holiday memory. Delicious sides would be Crockpot funeral potatoes, one pot Gouda and cream cheese corn, sweet potatoes with candied maple pecans, or scalloped potatoes au gratin.
Tips and Variations
Something you might be wondering is whether you can use a gluten-free puff pastry sheet. And the answer is yes, you absolutely can! If you are adventurous, you can even make your own puff pastry.
English mustard works well in this recipe because it’s very hot and flavourful. If you can’t find it, just sub another kind of yellow mustard or Dijon mustard instead. As for mushrooms, your favourite can be used instead of porcini to make the mushroom duxelles. Cremini mushrooms are often used.
The beef fillet in the wellington can be a fillet steak or filet mignon instead of beef tenderloin. It uses the center-cut portion of the meat that is known to be the most tender and juicy part of the cow.
Delicious Christmas Beef Wellington FAQs
If you want to know how to make beef wellington, I expect you’ll also be curious about how it got its name. This tasty recipe is a traditional British dish and named after Arthur Wellesley, the 1st duke of wellington, who won the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
Many people like to serve beef at the holidays and this easy beef wellington is the ultimate indulgence for beef fans. Beef wellington was apparently Richard Nixon’s favourite dish. Puff pastry wrapped meat has been a delicacy for hundreds of years and it’s thought that the Greeks came up with the idea first.
The parma ham can be substituted for other sliced cured meats, such as guanciale, jamon, pancetta, or even capicola. Filet mignon would work in place of the tenderloin.
You can make it up to 24 hours in advance if you stop before adding the puff pastry. Just wrap the beef in plastic wrap and keep it refrigerated.
Holiday Beef Wellington Recipe
Holiday Beef Wellington
Ingredients
- 1 Bulb garlic
- 1 Tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
- 3 Pounds beef tenderloin
- 3 Pinches sea salt flakes
- 3 Tablespoon unsalted butter
- 1 shallot minced
- 2 portobello mushrooms finely chopped
- ¼ Cup porcini mushrooms dried
- 2 Sprigs rosemary
- 3 Pinches peppercorn fresh cracked
- 2 Tablespoon English mustard
- 8 slices Prosciutto parma ham
- 1 Sheet puff pastry thawed
- 2 eggs whisked, for egg wash
- 2 Tablespoons water for egg wash
- 1 Teaspoon rosemary
- 1 Teaspoon thyme
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
- First, trim the tenderloin and thoroughly season all sides with salt and allow to come to room temperature as the garlic is roasted.
- Remove most of the peel from the garlic bulb. Slice the top off and place onto the center of a sheet of foil. Drizzle with olive oil and seal. Place into the oven for 30 minutes.
- Meanwhile, prepare the duxelles. Add 1 tbsp butter to a skillet over medium high heat. Finely chop the portobello mushrooms, porcini mushrooms, and shallot. Add to the hot skillet and cook for 15 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon and add to a bowl. Combine with roasted garlic. Mix well. place onto a paper towel lined plate. Set aside.
- Turn up the heat on the skillet. Add remaining butter and rosemary. Sear the tenderloin for 1 minute per side.
- Remove the tenderloin and place onto a wooden cutting board. Brush with mustard.
- Lay out a large sheet of plastic wrap onto a flat surface. Place the puff pastry sheet into the center.
- Next, lay the proscuitto parma ham over the pastry. Spread duxelles over the capicola.
- Place the tenderloin in the center. Wrap with the puff pastry.
- Tightly wrap the tenderloin with plastic wrap. Place into the fridge for 20 minutes.
- Remove and brush with egg wash. Season with rosemary and thyme and a pinch of salt and pepper.
- Place onto a baking sheet and put into the oven on the center rack. Bake for 30 minutes. It will be golden brown when cooked and have an internal temperature of 135 degrees F for medium rare or 150 degrees F for medium.
- Allow the steak to rest for 10 minutes. Slice just before serving.
Nutrition
The nutrition information provided are only estimates based on an online nutritional calculator. I am not a certified nutritionist. Please consult a professional nutritionist or doctor for accurate information and any dietary restrictions and concerns you may have.
Holiday beef wellington makes a wonderful Christmas day or Christmas Eve dinner. It looks impressive on your holiday dinner table. It’s one of the best things you can make with beef during the holiday season and is ideal for all kinds of special occasions or a dinner party.
There are plenty of sides for beef wellington and once you know how to make beef wellington yourself, you will be delighted how straightforward this amazing main dish is to prepare. This will become on of your favourite Christmas beef recipes!
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Bella Bucchiotti
Bella Bucchiotti is a storyteller, food lover, dog mom and adventure seeker living on the Pacific coast. She shares her passion for food, dogs, fitness, adventures, travel and philanthropy, in hopes of encouraging followers to run the extra mile, try new recipes, visit unfamiliar places and stand for a cause. Bella lives with Type 1 Diabetes and Celiac Disease.
i have always wanted to try this. looks easier than I thought it would be