How to Make a Perfectly Cooked Steak in Four Easy Steps

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Steak is one of my favorite meals.  I don’t get to have it too often, but I absolutely crave a delicious, perfectly cooked steak every once in awhile.

Because we don’t have it too often, when we are looking to buy steak we get the best cut money can buy.  It will still be cheaper than going out and I can make a restaurant quality steak in the comfort of my own home.  We splurge every once in awhile on a good New York strip, but you can choose a cheaper cut of steak and still make it delicious.

1. The steak must be room temperature.  Do not take the steak immediately from the refrigerator (or freezer) and put into a pan.  A room temperature steak will cook more evenly making every bite worth the price. If you are removing from the fridge or bringing the steak home, let it sit for 30 minutes to come up to room temperature.  Thank me later.
2. Cook the steak with salt and pepper.  You could try other spices, but I guarantee nothing will taste as good as a beautiful medium rare steak with just salt and pepper.  Add the salt and pepper 15 minutes before cooking your steak.  The salt will bring protein rich water to the surface which will help create that delicious crust on the outside.  If you’re crunched for time (as we all are as parents), you don’t have to put it on early, but I highly suggest you do. We prefer kosher salt for ours.
3. You will need a hot pan.  We use our cast iron for all of our steak cooking and slowly bring up the head prior to putting the salt and peppered steak in the pan.  A hot pan will get a great sear on the outside. Be careful of any splatter if you are using oil or butter.  We prefer butter for cooking our steaks, but you do need a little bit of vegetable oil to raise the smoke point. Olive oil’s smoke point is lower than butter therefore would not work with butter.  There are two avenues you can go down here.  You can sear on both sides continually, flipping every minute until you reach your desired temperature.  You can sear for one minute on each side, locking in those juices and finishing the steak off in the broiler for four minutes, flipping at the two minute mark.
4. Rest the meat! Let the meat rest for five minutes before cutting into the steak and ruining all of your hard work. Resting locks the juices in.  If you cut into the steak, those delicious juices spew all over your plate.

Dig into your perfectly cooked steak!

When cooking a steak, it’s important to remember to make your sides ahead of time because cooking a steak can go pretty quickly and does need your constant attention for roughly 10 minutes.