How to Butterfly a Roast for a Stunning Holiday Centerpiece

There’s something so rewarding when you present a show-stopping roast at the dinner table. But if you only make a pork loin or leg of lamb once or twice a year, it might understandably be a source of anxiety.

Butterflying your roast is a surprisingly easy way to ensure your expensive piece of meat is juicy, intensely flavorful, and well-seasoned. The technique involves slicing a boneless cut into a uniformly thick and flat piece of meat. Once you’ve flattened the meat, you can spread all sorts of fresh or dried herbs, aromatics, cheese, and other delicious fillings on the cut surface. You can then roll the roast into a uniform log and secure its shape with some butcher twine or skewers.

What’s more, you can make your butterflied roast a canvas for a wide range of flavors. Sophina Uong, executive chef and owner at Mister Mao in New Orleans, suggests stuffing a roast with finely chopped garlic, vegetables, herbs, mushroom duxelle, or even cornbread stuffing.

Here’s everything you need to know about butterflying — and how to pull it off in four easy steps.

What can you butterfly?

You can butterfly just about any large piece of boneless roast, whether it’s beef, lamb, turkey or pork.

“A beef roast is a good choice to butterfly because it creates a more evenly cooked piece of meat,” says Analisa LaPietra, chef de cuisine at Prohibition, with locations in Charleston and Columbia, South Carolina. “It also allows seasoning to penetrate the large, dense piece of meat.”

Uong recommends butterflying a pork loin: It’s a uniform shape, cooks quickly, and the meat works well with other ingredients and flavors. “A true show-stopper is a skin-on pork belly, butterflied, seasoned or stuffed, and rolled back together,” she says.

She also suggests butterflying a leg of lamb, which she seasons with harissa or a za’atar paste she says has a generous amount of grated garlic and sumac, and is mixed with olive oil and Maldon salt.

How to butterfly a roast

Step 1: Make a horizontal slice to cut it open

Place the roast lengthwise, fat-side down, on a cutting board, says LaPietra. Position your knife about a third of the way from the bottom of the right side of the roast (or the left side if you are left-handed). Slice horizontally through the meat, parallel to the cutting board. Stop about one inch before cutting through the other side of the roast. Separate the flaps of meat the way you would open a book.

Step 2: Repeat the cut

Place the thick part of the roast on the cutting board. Slice horizontally through this thick section toward its outer edge, unfolding as you slice. Be sure to stop about an inch from the end of the roast. Use the thinner section of the roast as a guide for the thickness. You’ll know you are finished slicing horizontally through the roast when the meat is a uniform thickness, ideally about one inch thick.

Step 3: Season or stuff

Once your roast is butterflied and uniformly flattened, you can season, stuff, and roll it. LaPietra likes to use a simple seasoning of chopped garlic, parsley, salt, and pepper that’s mixed into a paste, which is spread on the cut side of the butterflied roast.

Step 4: Roll and tie

Now that your roast is well seasoned or stuffed, roll it back up tightly following the same direction you sliced through your meat. Then, secure the roll with butcher’s twice or wooden skewers about an inch apart and cook it to the desired temperature.

Butterflying tips

Don’t be intimidated! Start with a large, sturdy, and secure cutting board and a sharp chef’s or boning knife, and follow these tips from LaPietra and Uong to ensure success:

• Dry your roast well with paper towels before you slice into it. You’ll have more control with your knife.

• When cooking your roast, use a good quality instant-read digital thermometer to get an accurate reading on the internal temperature. Some thermometers can be pre-set to a desired temperature, which allows the roast to cook undisturbed. The thermometer will alert you when it has reached the desired temperature.

• Be sure to rest your roast after you pull it from the oven. This allows for carryover cooking and for the juices to redistribute through the meat.

While practice makes perfect, butterflying a roast is quite forgiving if you make a mistake. Most often, you can simply tie it up to hide any flaws. “Tie the roast well so the stuffing doesn't fall out, and don’t worry if it’s ugly. You will be the only one to see it before slicing it to serve,” says Uong.

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