Oven-Baked Brisket

Total Time
Prep: 15 min. + marinating Bake: 4-1/4 hours

Updated Mar. 01, 2024

Oven brisket is a convenient alternative to smoked brisket! Use any leftovers of this Texas-style brisket in sandwiches and tacos.

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Oven brisket is an approachable way to cook Texas-style brisket without any fancy cookware or appliances. Smoked brisket is known for its iconic flavor and gorgeous smoke ring, but an oven-baked brisket can also deliver a juicy brisket with rich, meaty flavor. Oven brisket is moist and tender from an overnight marinade and a long bake time. A homemade barbecue glaze gives the brisket a sticky-sweet finish.

So if you don’t feel like firing up the smoker, or you don’t have a smoker to fire up, don’t worry about it. Restaurant-quality brisket can be yours, right inside your own kitchen, any time of year.

How to Cook Brisket in the Oven

It’s not difficult to cook brisket in the oven, but it does take time and a little planning. To start, marinate the brisket overnight to infuse it with savory flavor. The next day, slowly roast the brisket in the oven until it’s nice and tender. It’s important to cover the brisket as it cooks. This will trap the steam inside the baking dish, ensuring the meat becomes juicy.

There’s some debate about what temperature to cook brisket in the oven. We find that a 300°F oven is perfect. The brisket still cooks low and slow, but it doesn’t take as long as a smoker, which cooks as low as 225°. (Psst: Here’s how to turn your grill into a smoker.) Don’t be tempted to increase the temperature to help the brisket cook faster. Slow-roasting is the only way to tenderize tough cuts like brisket, so patience is key.

Finally, rest the brisket. Again, patience is key here. The general rule of thumb is to let roasts rest for 10 minutes per pound—and the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel allows her brisket to rest overnight! Yes, resting takes a long time, but it’s essential for letting the juices redistribute within the meat. Otherwise, those juices will spill out onto the cutting board, leaving the meat dry.

How long does it take to cook brisket in the oven?

In this recipe, we cook a 4- to 5-pound brisket for roughly 4-1/4 hours in a 300° oven. How long you’ll need to cook your brisket depends on the size of the brisket and your oven’s temperature. In general, plan on about one hour per pound. The brisket is finished cooking when you can insert a paring knife into the meat with ease.

If you prefer precision, monitor the brisket’s internal temperature with a probe thermometer like the Thermoworks Smoke X. The brisket begins to get tender at 190°. By the time it reaches 200°, it will be fall-apart tender and shreddable. If your goal is gorgeous sliced brisket, split the difference, and pull the brisket at 195°.

Ingredients for Oven Brisket

  • Beef brisket: Make sure you pick up fresh beef brisket, not corned beef (which has been heavily salted and seasoned). Look for a brisket with good marbling—long streaks of white fat within the lean sections of the meat. The more marbling, the more flavorful and tender the brisket. Ask the butcher to trim the fat to about 1/4 inch on top.
  • Worcestershire and soy sauce: Wondering what umami is? It’s a savory-style flavor, and these two condiments are full of it.
  • Liquid smoke: Liquid smoke adds slightly smoky notes to the marinade. Use a measuring spoon with this ingredient, as too much can introduce bitter notes.
  • Homemade barbecue sauce: We glaze barbecue sauce onto the brisket for the final 15 to 30 minutes of cook time. Our homemade sauce combines ketchup, brown sugar, lemon juice, soy sauce, ground mustard, hot pepper sauce and ground nutmeg. If you’re running short on time, use one of our Test Kitchen’s picks for the best barbecue sauces.

Directions

Step 1: Season the brisket

Seasoning the brisket in glass bowlTMB Studio

Place the brisket, fat side down, in a 13×9-inch baking dish. In a small bowl, whisk together the Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, onion salt, liquid smoke, salt, pepper and hot pepper sauce. Pour the seasoning over the brisket. Turn the brisket fat side up. Refrigerate, covered, overnight.

Step 2: Bake the brisket

Remove the brisket from the refrigerator. Preheat the oven to 300°. Bake, covered, for four hours.

Editor’s Tip: The brisket is finished cooking when you can insert a paring knife into the meat with ease. If you’re using a thermometer, brisket starts to get tender at 190° (or you can take it as far as 200° for shreddable brisket).

Step 3: Prepare the barbecue sauce

In a small bowl, combine the ketchup, brown sugar, lemon juice, soy sauce, ground mustard, hot pepper sauce and ground nutmeg.

Step 4: Glaze the brisket

Glazing the brisket with barbecue sauceTMB Studio

Spread the barbecue sauce over the brisket. Bake, uncovered, for 15 to 30 minutes longer, until tender.

Editor’s Tip: Let the brisket rest for at least 30 minutes—or as long as overnight in the refrigerator—before slicing.

Step 5: Slice and serve

Slicing the brisket with knife over wooden boardTMB Studio

Cut the rested brisket diagonally across the grain into thin slices.

Editor’s Tip: The way to cut steak is the same way to cut brisket: against the grain, the little lines that run parallel to each other on all meats. Position your knife perpendicular to the lines of the grain, then slice. These perpendicular slices will shorten each muscle fiber to the length of the slice, making the meat easier to chew and thus more tender. If you were to cut with the grain, on the other hand, each slice would contain long strands of muscle fibers, and the meat would be tough to chew, even if you had cooked the brisket perfectly.

Recipe Variations

  • Make it in the slow cooker: Prepare the recipe as directed. Instead of putting it in the oven, transfer the brisket and marinade to a 5- or 6-quart slow cooker. Cook on low for six to eight hours, until tender.
  • Use a dry rub: Many Texas-style briskets use a dry rub or a dry brine instead of a wet marinade. Feel free to swap in your favorite dry rub recipe.

Can you make oven brisket ahead of time?

There are several reasons you might want to make oven brisket a day or two ahead of time. For starters, cooling the whole brisket allows the juices to fully redistribute within the meat. Any resting time will also give the flavors a chance to further develop in the meat. Finally, cold brisket is simply easier to slice!

To make yours ahead, let the cooked brisket cool, whole in the pan, with its juices. Then cover the whole baking dish, and move it to the refrigerator. You can technically store it in the fridge up to four days, but we recommend serving it after just a day or two for the most freshness.

To reheat brisket in the oven, remove the pan from the refrigerator while the oven preheats to 350°. Scrape off any congealed fat from the brisket. Slice it against the grain, and return it to the baking dish with the cooking juices. Cover the sliced brisket, and cook for 30 to 45 minutes, until heated through.

How do you store beef brisket?

Once you slice the brisket, you can store it in an airtight container—along with the cooking juices—for up to four days in the refrigerator, or up to three months in the freezer. Thaw frozen brisket in the refrigerator overnight before reheating as directed above.

Oven Brisket Tips

Oven Brisket TMB Studio

What do you serve with oven brisket?

Oven brisket tastes great with potato salad, coleslaw, buttery cornbread or mac and cheese. Wondering how to use leftover oven-baked brisket? Turn it into brisket sliders or beef brisket tacos.

How much brisket do you need per person?

We recommend preparing 1/2 pound uncooked brisket per person, so a 4-pound brisket will feed about eight people. If you’re unsure, add an extra pound or two in case your guests come extra hungry. You can always freeze the leftovers!

How do you make beef brisket tender?

The best way to make beef brisket tender is to cook it at a low temperature for several hours. Brisket is a tough cut of meat that contains a lot of connective tissue, which takes a long time to break down. A low-and-slow cooking process should be enough to tenderize brisket, but that’s not where it ends! You also need to rest the meat to ensure the meat stays juicy. Then slice the brisket against the grain so the slices don’t become chewy.

What is the best cut of brisket?

We like to use the flat cut for brisket recipes like oven brisket. The flat cut is a long, thin cut that’s easy to slice and cooks evenly in the oven. It contains less fat than the point cut but still has plenty of intramuscular fat to keep the meat juicy as it cooks. The thicker, more-marbled point cut is better for grinding into brisket burgers or making shredded beef for pulled brisket sandwiches.

Oven Brisket Burger served on plate TMB Studio

Watch How to Make Oven-Baked Brisket

Oven-Baked Brisket

Prep Time 15 min
Cook Time 255 min
Yield 8 servings

Ingredients

  • 1 fresh beef brisket (4 to 5 pounds)
  • 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
  • 2 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 1 tablespoon onion salt
  • 1 tablespoon liquid smoke
  • 2 teaspoons salt
  • 2 teaspoons pepper
  • Dash hot pepper sauce
  • SAUCE:
  • 1/2 cup ketchup
  • 3 tablespoons brown sugar
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1 tablespoon soy sauce
  • 1 teaspoon ground mustard
  • 3 drops hot pepper sauce
  • Dash ground nutmeg

Directions

  1. Place brisket, fat side down, in a 13x9-in. baking dish. In a small bowl, mix Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, onion salt, liquid smoke, salt, pepper and hot pepper sauce; pour over brisket. Turn brisket fat side up; refrigerate, covered, overnight.
  2. Remove brisket from refrigerator. Preheat oven to 300°. Bake, covered, 4 hours. In a small bowl, combine sauce ingredients. Spread over brisket. Bake, uncovered, 15-30 minutes longer or until tender. Cut diagonally across the grain into thin slices.

Nutrition Facts

6 ounces cooked beef: 333 calories, 10g fat (4g saturated fat), 97mg cholesterol, 1920mg sodium, 11g carbohydrate (10g sugars, 0 fiber), 48g protein.

Texans like brisket cooked on the smoker, but this recipe offers convenient prep in the oven. Sometimes I make extra sauce to serve on the side. Round out the meal with potato salad and slaw. —Katie Ferrier, Houston, TX
Recipe Creator
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