Science: Make the Best Steaks By Cooking Frozen Meat (No Thawing!)

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Conventional wisdom holds that frozen steaks should be thawed before cooking, but we wondered if you can cook frozen meat straight from the freezer. Cook's Illustrated Senior Editor Dan Souza explains our cooking experiments.

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WATCH: How to Quickly Defrost Meat
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Recipe for Ultimate Charcoal-Grilled Steaks: http://cooks.io/2lsTUYe
Recipe for Grilled Frozen Steaks: http://cooks.io/2lsXUYu
Recipe for Pan-Seared Thick-Cut Strip Steaks: http://bit.ly/ULQJwD

EXPERIMENT

We cut a strip loin into eight steaks, cut each steak in half crosswise, put the pieces in vacuum-sealed bags, and froze them. We then thawed half of each steak in the refrigerator overnight and kept the other half frozen. Using our preferred method, we seared both sets of steaks in a hot skillet for 90 seconds per side and then transferred them to a 275-degree oven until they reached 125 degrees, or medium-rare. To track moisture loss, we weighed each steak before and after cooking.

RESULTS

Not surprisingly, the frozen steaks took longer to finish cooking through in the oven (18 to 22 minutes versus 10 to 15 minutes for the thawed steaks). What was surprising was that the frozen steaks actually browned in the skillet just as well as, and in the same amount of time as, the thawed steaks. Furthermore, they had thinner bands of gray, overcooked meat directly under the crust than the thawed steaks had. We also found that these steaks lost on average 9 percent less moisture during cooking than the thawed steaks did. Sampling the steaks side by side, tasters unanimously preferred the cooked-from-frozen steaks to their thawed counterparts.

EXPLANATION

A fully frozen steak is extremely cold, which prevents overcooking while the surface reaches the very high temperatures necessary for browning reactions. As for the difference in moisture loss, we know that when meat is cooked to temperatures higher than 140 degrees, its muscle fibers begin to squeeze out a significant amount of moisture. As its slightly thicker gray band indicated, the steak that had been thawed had more overcooking around the edge, so it made sense that it also had greater moisture loss.

THE TAKEAWAY

While we prefer to start with steak that’s never been frozen for the best texture, if we do have frozen steaks on hand, from now on we’ll cook them straight from the freezer. (But if you can choose between frozen vs. fresh, definitely go for fresh.)

Here's what to do for the best frozen steaks: Freeze steaks, uncovered, overnight on a baking sheet (this dries them out to prevent excess splattering during cooking), then wrap them tightly in plastic wrap, place in a zipper-lock bag, and return to freezer. To ensure that the steaks brown evenly, add oil to the skillet until it measures 1/8 inch deep. And because frozen steaks will splatter more during searing, use a large skillet.

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