Best oil for searing how to#

Next, add about a teaspoon of oil to the pan, and spread it out with a brush: Important: You don’t want to season the steaks with salt earlier than right before you cook them, otherwise the salt will draw out moisture and make the outside wet again. When the skillet is very hot, it’s time to season the steaks. If you use gigantic pan for a small steak, the uncovered areas will soon be covered in burned steak juices. Do not use nonstick cookware, as the heat will be too high.Īdditionally, pick a skillet that is close in size to your steak. If you don’t have a cast iron skillet, well, you should buy one ( it’s $15 and will last you a lifetime), but if you don’t have one right now, you can use any uncoated pan with good heat retention (heavy bottomed, copper core, etc). I find cast iron to be the best for searing steaks because it’s naturally nonstick, it retains heat wonderfully, and the material gives a better sear than a stainless steel pan.

Now that the steak is dry, start heating up a cast iron skillet over high heat. This is because the moisture must first evaporate before the browning can happen, so you want to get rid of as much as possible from the start. It may not seem like there’s much moisture on the outside of the steaks, but look how a few dabs really wets the paper towel:Įxcess moisture on the outside of your steak is the enemy of a caramelized and browned steak. Next, lay your steaks out on a board and blot them dry with a paper towel: If it’s cold straight out of the fridge, you have to cook the heck out of the outside in order to get the center up to rare. This is really important and makes a big difference both with how evenly your steak cooks and how juicy it turns out. The first thing you want to do is take your steaks out of the fridge an hour before cooking. The way a steak is prepared makes all the difference in the flavor and tenderness of the meat.

Best oil for searing how to#

How to make restaurant quality steaks at home: It’s very simple and gives the results I want, which is a browned outside and a rare interior.Īnd of course, you can cook it more if you prefer a more well done steak. The verdict? I still like this method the best.

I recently experimented with a few of them to see if I liked new methods better.

This post was originally published in January 2011, and since then I’ve seen many different methods for pan seared steak on the internet and in cookbooks. You can also use it as the star ingredient for Steak Salad to have something a little different than the usual chicken.Ī steak can taste incredible with a good seasoning of salt and pepper, and proper searing technique.Ī little butter doesn’t hurt either, and if you pair it with a side of homemade Potato Gratin too? That’s an awesome dinner. Steaks are much more expensive at restaurants, and I have found it unnecessary to pay that premium when it’s so easy to make at home.Ī béarnaise sauce can be nice on occasion, but I usually don’t bother with making sauce for steak at home, mainly because a good pan seared steak already tastes so fantastic. We make a lot of steak in our house, and because we live in the Northeast, outdoor grilling is out of the question for much of the year.įortunately this doesn’t matter, as searing steak on the stove is a fantastic method too, and you can cook this any time of year.īecause steaks are one of the easiest foods you can cook yourself, you’ll never find me at a steakhouse. Searing steak is so easy to do, I never order steak at restaurants anymore! Here are my top tips for a pan seared steak that is caramelized on the outside, and juicy in the middle.