Authentic German Beef Rouladen

I will show you how easy it is to make delicious authentic German Rouladen, the ultimate comfort food beef dinner, perfect for the fall and winter season.

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If you visit a traditional restaurant in Germany, you will notice that rouladen is one of their most popular dishes.

German rouladen is essentially thin slices of beef rolled up with a savory filling of bacon, onion, and pickles. The beef rolls are braised with vegetables until they are tender and swimming in a rich, flavorful gravy.

Please don’t be put off by the length or number of steps for this recipe. It may look a lot more complicated than it really is. I hope you’ll give it a try to see how easy it really is to make.

Ingredients

One of the challenges of “translating” a recipe from Germany to the U.S. is that butchers cut up the animal differently.

Choosing the best cut of beef for rouladen

Typically, Germans make rouladen with Oberschale – a German word for a cut of beef from the upper hind leg.

In U.S. grocery stores, look for flank steak, top round, or hangar steak. If the pieces are very thick, you can either ask your butcher to cut them into thin slices for you or do it yourself at home.

Ideally, you want the slices of meat to be 3/8ths of an inch or thinner. If you need to make them thinner, a meat mallet or tenderizer is helpful.

While beef is the most popular meat for German Rouladen, some people make it with pork or venison.

Here are the other ingredients for the classic German Rouladen recipe:

• Mustard: Dijon mustard is very similar to German mustard, and often the easiest to find here in the States. You will spread this on the slices of meat. Feel free to use any brown mustard or make my recipe for homemade whole-grain mustard.
• Bacon: I feel that bacon is essential for beef rouladen since it gives them extra flavor with its fat and smokiness. But you can get creative – use prosciutto or slices of breakfast ham.
• Pickles: This is another essential. Many stores carry German pickles or cornichons.
• Onion: white or yellow onions – whichever you prefer

Ingredients for the sauce

• Red wine: This gives the Rouladen its authentic flavor. If you’re worried about the alcohol, just know that it all evaporates during the cooking. But you can always substitute it with more bouillon/stock.
• Broth/stock: Either one works fine here. The amount depends a bit on the size of your cooking vessel and how many rouladen you will be cooking. Ideally, you want to use enough liquid to come halfway up the sides of the beef rolls.
• Chopped carrots, celery, and leeks: We call them Suppengrün (literally “soup green”) and they will flavor your sauce. You can substitute onions for the leeks. If you can find celery root, your sauce will have an even deeper, earthy flavor.
• Bay leaf
• Tomato paste: This lends a nice acidity and good color to your sauce. Alternatively, you can use fresh or canned tomatoes.

Useful tools and equipment

Using these kitchen supplies will save you time and give you the best-tasting German rouladen:

• Cooking vessel: I love using my cast-iron Dutch oven since it makes for very even heat distribution. However, you can use a regular stainless steel pot or an enameled cast-iron pot. When in a hurry, I like using my old-fashioned pressure cooker. An Instant Pot is a more modern choice.
• Something to slice the meat with: If you purchase a top round or very thick flank steaks and don’t have a butcher who can slice it thinly for you, you might need to slice it yourself. Use the sharpest knife you have, or even better, use a meat slicer.
• To flatten the slices to an even thickness, you’ll want to use a meat mallet.
• Something to keep the rouladen together while it cooks: To be sure the filled beef rolls stay together, you’ll need to tie them. My preference is poultry lacers, but a lot of people like to use cooking twine. If you don’t have either, you can use wooden toothpicks or skewers.

How to make Beef Rouladen

This is a summary of the steps involved in making the recipe. For the complete instructions, please scroll down to the recipe card at the bottom of the post.

Make the sauce

When the Rouladen are very tender, remove them from the Dutch oven with kitchen tongs and place them on a plate.

Strain the vegetables through a mesh colander set over a bowl to catch the liquid. You can either serve the reserved vegetables and eat them with your German Rouladen or use them for something else.

Thicken the sauce with 2 tablespoons each of butter and flour in a skillet or your cooking pot. Melt the butter over medium heat, stir in the flour, then whisk in the reserved liquid and 1-2 tablespoons of tomato paste.

Bring everything to a boil and cook it over low heat to create a thick sauce. If it ends up too thick, you can thin it with more red wine or stock. If the sauce is not thick enough, you can add more flour or cornstarch.

Place the German rouladen back into the Dutch oven and coat them evenly with the sauce. If they are too cool, gently reheat them in the sauce.

Serving Suggestions

While you can eat this classic German dish with anything you like, there are some very traditional sides. Braised red cabbage and boiled potatoes or potato dumplings are the classic sides for rouladen. Any vegetables you like will be fine, though.

Another popular side dish with this meal is spätzle – they are essentially tiny German dumplings.

Alternate cooking methods

The key to this dish is to braise it until the meat is very tender. This will depend on how thick and even your slices of meat are and what type of meat you are using.

Pressure cooker or Instant Pot

1. After preparing the rouladen and sauteing the vegetables according to the recipe below, add the cooking liquid to your pressure cooker. Be sure to scrape up any brown bits from the bottom of the pot.
2. Return the rouladen to the pot and place the lid on top. Seal the pressure cooker and manually set it to cook on High power for 20 minutes. When it’s finished cooking, allow the pressure to release naturally for 15 minutes, then you can quick release any remaining pressure.

I personally prefer braising them in my oven since I think it provides a consistent and even heat.

If you own a crock pot (slow cooker), you can probably use that, but it will take several hours on low heat. Since I have not personally made rouladen in a crock pot, I am not sure of the exact cook time.

Thermomix also has a setting to make perfect rouladen. 

If you have any questions, and/or to rate this recipe, please leave a comment below!

Other German recipes you might enjoy

• German Schnitzel
• Old Fashioned Hot German Potato Salad
• Cold German Potato Salad
• Authentic German Sauerkraut
• German Whole Grain Bread
• Hungarian Beef Goulash
• Classic German Cabbage Rolls
• Hearty German Oxtail Stew | Ochsenschwanzragou

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