How To Make A Sunday Roast Like Sam Holland

For those who are familiar with Sam Holland’s Instagram and TikTok and the decadent dishes he shares (like a gooey chocolate fondant cake or bacon-studded roasted Brussels sprouts), they might be surprised to hear what he says food is all about: Connection.

“In my family, we always sat down for dinner and spoke about our days,” says Holland. Connecting over food and stories was how he got into cooking. “It became quite a ritual,” he said, forming the roots of his approachable-yet-ambitious cooking, which he now shares with hundreds of thousands of followers. His Granny Tess, a passionate home cook in her own right, was a big influence, too. “She was the catalyst for me to really learn more about cooking,” says Holland. When he was just knee-high to a grasshopper, as they say in the UK, Sam was learning ‘all the classics’ from Granny Tess, like apple crumble, soda bread, and scones. “She really opened my eyes,” Holland says.

The beginnings were humble, though. At first, he was just peeling carrots for his mum for a Sunday roast. From there, he branched out into pasta dishes and simple meals for his mum and dad. “They probably had to force it down,” he says, laughing. Mistakes were a natural part of learning to cook, and he learned from them.

After going to university as all his peers were doing, Holland realized it wasn’t where his passion lay. Food, instead, called to him. He enrolled at Leiths School of Food and Wine (founded by Prue Leith of Great British Bake Off Fame) and there learned the techniques he needed to become a professional cook. “I just had the best year ever and I was just obsessed about learning more,” he says. Encouraged to pursue further training in restaurant kitchens, Holland headed up to Gleneagles resort in Scotland. There, he took the building blocks culinary school provided and learned how to cook at scale. Despite it being overwhelming and difficult, he says, the training was pivotal. And not just because he learned how to make the world’s best potatoes.

About those potatoes: Holland insists that they are the true measure of a great Sunday roast. “A superhero movie is only as good as its villain,” he jokes, referring to the fact that most people think about lamb, pork, or chicken when thinking about a roast. But really, it’s all about the potatoes.

For the uninitiated, Sundays in Britain are devoted to the art of the roast. You may go to your local pub for a plate of roast meat, veggies, and a Yorkshire pudding, but if you want to do it right, you’ll follow Holland’s lead and make it yourself. HexClad was lucky enough to get the DL on Holland’s ideal roast menu.

These are the dishes Sam Holland serves for Sunday Roast:

• Roast beef: Holland’s choice for a main is a classic pick in England. “I color the beef in a 14-inch Hybrid Pan,” he says, then transfers it to the oven with some honey-glazed carrots and parsnips.
• Cauliflower cheese: The ultimate comfort food, Holland makes his cauliflower cheese (think mac ‘n’ cheese, but with cauliflower instead of pasta) in a deep sauté pan.
• Sam Holland’s famous potatoes: Holland follows the Gleneagles tradition of roast potatoes, starting them by boiling in heavily salted water, even over cooking them. Then, he’ll ‘rough up’ the potatoes by shaking them in a colander until they get slightly shaggy around the edges. Then, he’ll toss them with a garlic-and-rosemary-infused oil in a roasting pan, and roast them until golden brown and crispy.
• Something green: Holland balances out the decadent aspects of the meal with Brussels sprouts, broccoli, and/or green beans. If he’s going with Brussels sprouts, he’ll start by crisping them on the stovetop, deglazing with stock, and then send them into the oven to get caramelized.
• Pudding (that’s dessert for the Americans): If it’s Christmas, Holland goes for Granny Tess’s Christmas pudding, an old fashioned dessert made with mincemeat, butter, and suet (aka, beef fat). For those who don’t like that dessert, or if it’s not December, Holland will make a bread and butter pudding.

Given all the success Holland has had at such a young age, what is it that he hopes to achieve in the future? He mentions the impact of cooking videos and shows when he was growing up, recognizing that now, that’s the way many people learn their way around a kitchen. In five to ten years time, he hopes, he’ll be meeting people who remember watching his videos and credit them for helping them become the cooks they are today. Will he be their Granny Tess, then? “Yeah,” he says, laughing again, “but I’m not quite a grandad, yet.”