My friend Dave Ruel aka “the Muscle Cook” and author of the Anabolic Cooking was in town visiting a couple weeks ago and he taught me how to cook the perfect the steak.
One terrific source of protein that tops the list for many people in terms of what they want to be including in their diet plan is steak. Steak is rich in protein, high in iron, and if you choose a leaner cut of steak, will also contain a low amount of saturated fat. If you can purchase grass fed beef, you’ll also get some healthy fats from this protein source, making it especially healthy.
That said, some of you have approached me with a number of questions regarding cooking your steak as part of your healthy meal plans, so let’s give you the facts you need to know.
Question 1: When I cook steaks, I often mess them up in one way or another. But one question I have is will there be a difference in seasoning the steak prior to starting to cook it or can I season it after I cook it and get the same effect?
Muscle Cook: For best results, I’d recommend seasoning the steak before cooking it. This way the seasonings can absorb into the meat better and blend with the natural meat juices during the cooking process.
Waiting until after to season it won’t give you nearly the same flavor and you might find it rather bland tasting or too powerful if you use too much spice.
Question 2: How long should I marinate a steak for before cooking it?
Muscle Cook: Ideally you should marinate your steak the night before you want to cook it and let it sit in the fridge overnight, but if you can marinate it for 3-4 hours before cooking, that will also be effective and help to bring out the flavors that you’re looking for.
Question 3: When cooking steaks with vegetables, is there a right way or a wrong way to cook them? Should I cook them separately from the steak? Or should I cook the steak first?
Muscle Cook: Your safest and best bet here is to cook the vegetables until they are almost finished first, then remove them from the pan/heat. Then prepare your steak and about 2-3 minutes before it’s finished, add the vegetables back in.
This will still allow the flavor from the steak to blend with the vegetables and vice versa as they’ll be in the hot pan together, but give you more control over the speed of cooking to ensure that you cook each until your desired state of doneness.
Steak is definitely a great addition to your healthy meal plan so if you have any questions that you’d like to ask about the cooking process, make sure that you post them below.
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I LOVE steak. In fact I did a 24 hour intermittent fast then cooked some up yesterday.
Awesome! What a way to break the fast.
Hopefully y’all are cooking grass fed beef or at least bison. CAFO meat are very unhealthy. Cows are ruminant animals and feed on grass and not grains. Grass fed meat is leaner and the cooking times should be adjusted. Cook to rare to med-rare. Do not over cook. You destroy the protein. Let the meat sit before eating to let the juices settle back into the steak. My favorite sauce is quartered baby bella mushrooms sautéed oner high heat finished with Madeira wine (reduce the wine over low heat until almost gone then slowly add the butter) and pastured butter. If you cook the steak in a pan use it to cook your veggies or sauce while the steak rests. The pan juices (called a fond) are full of flavor.
Great tips, thanks Paul! Grass fed is where it’s at.
I’m in agreement with all above. As for the cooking, I sear my steaks on both sides in a pan (less than a minute per side) then pop them into the broiler for several minutes, depending on how thick & how well done you care for. Enjoy!
Thanks alot for this Dave and Mike. Really appreciate it.
Do not fear saturated fat. It is part of a healthy diet and we need it for hormone production, immunity and cell structure. The heart actually prefers it for energy. The fat surrounding the heart is saturated. Humans have been eating it since the beginning. There is actually no scientific proof that it has any affect on heart disease.
You’re right again 🙂
Just wanted to give a quick comment. We eat alot of steak and this is our way of cooking a great steak. First of all a good cut of meat has to be cooked Med.-Rare and more to the rare side with the better the cut. That is where you have to have a thicker cut of meat,an inch and three quarters and a very hot cooking surface. This allows a nice crust on the outside and just warm in the center. Seasoning is all well but a good cut cooked properly needs little seasoning, but if so make sure what ever the seasoning if it has alot of salt dont over marinnate the salt can dry out the moisture while cooking.
Here at Belgium we do it this way.
Make a pan very hot, the put a nice tablespoon butter in it with some olive oil (not to much, maybe teaspoon)
Fry the steak 2 – 3 minutes on each side.
When done, put the steak in the over for 20 minutes at 40 degrees celsius, or put on a platter with al. foil on it, on a warm place.
This will be a very juicy steak, enjoy
Being single for most of my life, I’ve done a lot of experimenting with seasonings and cooking a variety of meals. If you want the PERFECT combination of seasoning for fish, chicken breasts, steaks, and pork steaks, try Old Bay seasoning, a GOOD garlic salt, (McCormicks) and a GOOD cajun seasoning. That combination kicks all the meat flavor up 2 or 3 notches. Hope you enjoy it.