Beef Roulade with Bacon, Onion, and Thyme {Whole30, Paleo}

Beef Roulade with Bacon, Onion, and Thyme recipe. A naturally Paleo and Whole30 dish made of beef that is rolled together with bacon, onion, and thyme inside and cooked until a natural meat and bacon gravy forms.

Over the weekend my mother showed me how to make her Beef Roulade with Bacon, Onion, and Thyme recipe. It’s an eastern european recipe that was passed down from my grandmother, and it’s a dish that I fondly remember eating in my childhood.

It’s basically long flat pieces of beef with bacon, onion, and thyme on it, that is then rolled together, and cooked until it is surrounded in a natural meat and bacon gravy.

This roulade is one of those dishes where simple good quality ingredients result in the most flavorful melt-in-your mouth meals. And it just so happens to be naturally Paleo, Whole30, Gluten-free, Grain-free, and Clean… which is a great perk!

A few months ago my mother made this Beef Roulade with Bacon, Onion, and Thyme recipe and, as is the case every time that she makes it, I told her how delicious it was.

I asked her how she made it and realized a few things….

1) It’s really quite simple as there are only a few ingredients.

2) It’s made of all natural whole food ingredients and is naturally Paleo and Whole30… and

3) This needed to be on my blog ASAP.

I do have to admit that I forgot about it… which is why I am only putting it up now.

BUT at the grocery store over the weekend, I saw some great looking thin pieces of “beef skirt inside steak” at Whole Foods.

It seemed like the perfect time to have her teach me how to make her Beef Roulade with Bacon, Onion, and Thyme recipe, so that I could then share it with you!

She happily helped show me how to make it, and I took photos and notes of each step to make it easier to share.. 🙂

So to start, you will need long thin pieces of skirt steak or flank steak. My pieces were between 1/4 and 1/2 inch thick and were about 8- 9 inches long.

Don’t worry if the steak is exactly 8-9 inches long, some of mine were 6 inches long and some were 11 inches long, but ideally 8-9 inches long is ideal.

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Then, you lay a slice of bacon on top of one piece of skirt steak and sprinkle it with salt and pepper.

After that, you take a wedge of onion and a branch of fresh thyme and place that towards the front side/ end of the steak. Then you roll the steak with the piece of onion inside it, onto it self, until the meat is completely rolled up.

It is helpful to use two toothpicks to secure the end into the roll /roulade.

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You do this for each piece of steak, until all of them are rolled up. I had 10 roulades in this recipe.

Then you put all of the roulades into a big ceramic dutch oven filled with 2 cups of water. ( My mother likes to use water because she said there is enough fat in the bacon and beef that you don’t need any more in the recipe… which is true)

Lastly, you top the pan with 3 bay leaves, 1/4 tsp red pepper flakes, and 3 branches of thyme.

Then you let it cook for about an hour ( flipping the roulades on different sides twice).

Then you remove the meat from the dutch oven, and reduce the sauce until it thickens. You can either put the meat back in or put the meat into another pan and top it with the sauce. I like topping it with the sauce. 🙂

My mother told me that this dish is traditionally served with either boiled or mashed potatoes ( I have a great Whole30 Mashed Potatoes recipe which would taste great with this!), and with a cauliflower au gratin.

I highly highly recommend eating it with both. And with some homemade applesauce. 🙂

I did some research into this type of dish and found that it is also called a rouladen, which is German, and they make it with pickles in the middle.

My mother always called it a roulady ( I’m not sure how to spell it but the word ends in a “Y” sound haha), and said this was a Hungarian / Eastern European version that was made in her family growing up. ( Her parents were Hungarian).

Either way, it’s DELICIOUS and such a treat to have for dinner.