Smoked Prime Rib has become a Christmas tradition at my house! I mean, is there anything better than an excellent prime rib!! I have had prime rib in a restaurant and always was like, ehhh. Well, a friend filled me in on how they smoke their prime rib, so we opted to try it at home!

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With life constantly changing, we have been working to evolve our old traditions into new ones. The kids took to Pinterest and searched for Christmas dinners!! One meat kept popping up prime rib; now we have been trying new meats, but this is one the kids, and I haven’t had. We didn’t want to have our Christmas dinner with meat we weren’t sure we liked, so we had to give it a test run and timed it over the weekend watching football.
Project SmokeThe Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year of Holidays: 140 Step-by-Step Recipes
The Taste of Home Cookbook, 5th Edition: Cook. Share. Celebrate.
Smoked Prime Rib Roast Ingredients:
An important note about my roast was that I picked mine up at a local butcher shop. They asked how I was cooking my roast and offered to season it!! The seasoning is what I was most nervous about, so to have an expert do it was perfect. I also had the butch tie it up when he said it would help flavor and cooking, and he wasn’t wrong!

How To Smoke A Prime Rib Roast:
Season your prime rib roast and set it in the fridge for a day or more to allow the flavor to soak in.
Now, this is where you know your smoker and how to prep it for smoking. I use an electric smoker and prefer apple disks to smoke all my meat.
Remove your smoker’s chip holder, water bin, and racks, and cap off your exhaust pipe if necessary.
Now I like to use pucks in my smoker! Below are the pucks I use and also my smoker as well. I also recommend having a good meat thermometer.
Vertical SmokersBradley Pucks
Meat Thermometer
Fire up the smoker by raising the temperature on the dial.
Fill the water dish and chip holder.
Place in your chips, and once they start to smoke, put them in your water tray. I find I can get good smoke faster by doing this method.
Once your smoker gets hot enough and a smoke, place your prime rib roast on a rack. I kept my smoker at 150-200. I cooked it low and slowed for the best flavor.

Roast for hours, at least over 6 hours. We made the mistake of pulling it out to see if we could grill it faster to finish it off, and it went up in flames; learn from our mistake and don’t put it on the grill!
Keep replacing your smoker chips and disks to keep the smoke going.

We smoked ours to an internal temperature of 130, so be sure to look at what temperature you want for how rare you want your meat.

There are no words to describe how amazing this was to eat!!
What is your go-to holiday food??
What To Serve With Smoked Prime Rib Roast:
Side dishes, I mean, can make or break the meal. Personally, nothing beats turkey dipped into mashed potatoes for a holiday meal! You can see all my Holiday Side Dishes -> here.
- Loaded Mashed Potatoes
- Green Bean Casserole
- Garlic Mashed Potatoes
- Oven Roasted Garlic Potatoes Recipe
- Garlic Parmesan Biscuit Pull-Apart Bread Recipe
- Easy Oven Roasted Baby Potatoes
- Triple Chocolate Bundt Cake
- Peanut Butter Pie
- Crescent Roll Peach Dumplings Recipe
- Deviled Eggs
Other Recipes To Check Out
- Instant Pot Recipes for Beginners
- Comforting Winter Soup
- Tater Tot Casserole Recipes
- Recipes Using Coca-Cola
- Comforting Casserole Recipes
- No Bake Dessert Recipes
- Potato Salad Recipes
- Breakfast Casseroles
- Pasta Salad Recipes
- Crockpot Chicken Recipes
- Ground Beef Beef Recipes
- Crockpot Tailgating Recipes
- Crockpot Soup Recipes
- Super Easy Ground Beef Recipes
Smoked Prime Rib Roast
Ingredients
Instructions
- Season your prime rib roast and if possible let it set in the fridge for a day or more to allow the flavor to soak in.
- Now, this is where you know your smoker and how to prep it for smoking. I use an electric smoker and prefer to use apple disks for smoking all my meat.
- Remove your chip holder, water bin, and racks out of your smoker and cap off your exhaust pipe if necessary.
- Fire up the smoker by raising the temperature on the dial
- Fill the water dish and chip holder
- Place in your chips and once they start to smoke put in your water tray. I find I can get a good smoke faster by doing this method.
- Once your smoker gets hot enough and a smoke place in your prime rib roast on a rack. I kept my smoker at 150-200
- Roast for hours at least over 6 hours. We made the mistake of pulling it out to see if we could grill it faster to finish it off and it went up in flames, learn from our mistake don’t put it on the grill!
- Be sure to keep replacing your smoker chips and disks to keep the smoke going.
- We smoked ours to an internal temperature of 130, so be sure to look what temperature you want for how rare you want your meat.
Jocelyn @ Hip Mama's Place says
Prime rib is one of our Christmas eve family dinner traditions. Yours looks like it came out great, i hope y’all enjoyed! Heartburn as also haunted me since my second pregnancy, i will be sure to grab some Nexium next time i’m out.
Jeanine says
Oh my goodness. I would love to have this right about now. It looks and sounds just Devine. I think this weekend we’ll be making this!
Julie says
What a classic meal! Perfect for a holiday dinner! Love how simple it actually is.
Jamie says
This roast looks like such an incredible meal! I would love to make this for dinner on Christmas, it would be such a hit!
Elizabeth O says
Smart idea to have all the bases covered with our foods this holiday season. Heart burn can be a real festivities spoiler.
Sandra Garth says
This is my husband’s favorite and I’m sure I’d be nominated for wife of the year if I could pull this off. our grocery store had bone in prime rib for $6.99 a pound yesterday. Now I wish I had bought one.
Christine says
Your prime rib looks wonderful! I cook mine in the oven with crushed black peppercorns, salt and a couple of herbs. I would have shared the recipe but apparently pinterest is acting up and I can’t pull up the recipe I use ever year. grr. sorry! This year I am looking at twelve for dinner so I am cooking two prime ribs and one crown roast of pork. (hubby is a pork lover not steak) I wish I owned a smoker, that would be a great way to cook one.
Jan says
That roast looks beautiful! And I hear you on the heartburn but am starting to find what triggers it for me so I’ve been watching what I eat a little more 😉
Chris says
Please be certain you are actually getting PRIME-Rib. Not just RIB Roast. A lot of butchers will sell you choice rib roast, Make sure its Prime. It should have great fatty marbling through the roast. It gets pricy but the family is worth it as we celebrate a great Christmas.