Classic Smoked Beef Tenderloin

All About This Classic Smoked Beef Tenderloin

This Classic Smoked Beef Tenderloin is a dish my husband likes to serve for special occasions like Christmas and Easter. While this beef tenderloin is such a special treat, you may be surprised to find out that it is relatively simple to prepare! The smoker does the majority of the work for you, and the end result is a delightfully tender, savory beef tenderloin that you will look forward to serving for every holiday. We enjoy serving this beef tenderloin with a vegetable like these Oven Roasted Brussels Sprouts and a starch like these Crispy Oven Roasted Potatoes.

While You’re At The Butcher

For a family of six, we ask our butcher for a seven pound lean beef tenderloin. This gives us enough for a hearty meal with plenty of leftovers. We specifically ask for the silver skin to be removed and for it to be trimmed and tied with the tail folded. After these cuts are made, this yields about five pounds of beef tenderloin to be smoked. Also, make sure to ask for the extra cuts to be made into ground beef. This ground beef is *amazing* and is great to use or freeze for another meal or two. We usually get two pounds of ground beef from the extra cuts every time we get a beef tenderloin. It makes for some delicious burgers!

What You’ll Need

Equipment

Plastic wrap
Large plate
Smoker (we have a Big Green Egg smoker)
Large bowl
Wood chunks (we use Cowboy Hickory Smoking Wood Chunks)
Water
Charcoal (we use Cowboy Oak And Hickory Hardwood Lump Charcoal)
Digital temperature gauge or meat thermometer
Aluminum foil
Serving platter
Serrated knife

Ingredients

Lean beef tenderloin
Seasonings of your choice (we use a combination of McCormick Grill Mates Applewood Rub and McCormick Grill Mates Brown Sugar Bourbon Seasoning)
Kale or arugula
Parsley

Prepping This Classic Smoked Beef Tenderloin

The night before you want to cook your beef tenderloin, season liberally, wrap in plastic wrap, place on a large plate to catch any juices, and store in the refrigerator. About an hour before you want to cook, take the beef tenderloin out of the refrigerator to take some of the chill off.

Cooking This Classic Smoked Beef Tenderloin

Soak your wood chunks in a large bowl filled with water for 30 minutes. Drain the wood chunks and arrange them on top of the coals in the bottom of your smoker. Target your smoker temperature to 225-250 degrees. Maintain that temperature for 15-20 minutes before placing the meat in the smoker. Once you have placed the meat on the cooking grate in the smoker, close the lid and cook to an internal temperature of 120-125 degrees for rare and 130-135 degrees for medium rare. You can use this handy temperature guide for smoked beef. You can expect this to take approximately an hour to an hour and a half, depending on how many pounds of meat you are cooking.

We use this digital temperature gauge to monitor the temperature of the meat. We like it because you can use an app to sync it to your phone. If you don’t have a digital temperature gauge, any meat thermometer will be perfect. Once the beef tenderloin has reached the temperature of your choosing, remove it from the smoker and wrap in aluminum foil. Allow it to rest for about 25-30 minutes to let the juices settle back into the meat before slicing.

Presentation Suggestions

Arrange a bed of kale or arugula on a serving platter. Place the beef tenderloin on top of the greens and cut into 1 1/2 inch slices with a serrated knife. Garnish with parsley.

Nutritional Information

You can have four ounces of this Classic Smoked Beef Tenderloin for 311 calories, 4 WW Green SmartPoints®, 4 WW Blue SmartPoints®, and 4 WW Purple SmartPoints®.

Go here to calculate your own WW PersonalPoints™ for this recipe.