Reverse Sear Steaks
This week we’re going to be doing a reverse sear steak. I’d read about it, but never tried it before. I’m now a huge fan.
Reverse sear is going to give us a perfectly medium rare steak with well developed char/ crust. What’s not to love! If you want a medium instead of a medium rare, you’ll just leave it in the oven until it reaches 125-130 before taking it out to hard sear in the pan or on the grill.
Equipment needed: Rimmed baking sheet, raised wire rack that fits in the pan, instant read thermometer, cast iron skillet or out door grill to hard sear the steak when we’ve brought it up desired temp.
Really simple prep. You’re going to take the steak out of the fridge and dry it with paper towels. You’ll salt and pepper it and leave it at room temp for an hour prior to cooking.
We’re going to preheat the oven to 250 degrees and then we’ll put the steak on the wire rack and place that in the rimmed baking sheet and place in the preheated oven.
For a medium rare steak I pulled my steak when it had an internal temp of 118.
I then finished cooking it in a screaming hot cast iron skillet with a table spoon of avocado oil. After I placed the steak in the skillet, I added a knob of cold butter to the skillet and used that to baste the steaks. When I finished the sear my temp was over 120 and it continued to rise while it rested. It was one of the best steaks that I’ve eaten. Perfectly medium rare and incredibly tender.
Kitchen Essentials
Here’s a list of some of the essential items you are going to need for this recipe as well as other items that I very highly recommend.
For this recipe:
- Rimmed baking sheet
- Raised wire rack that fits in the pan
- Instant read thermometer
- Cast iron skillet or out door grill to hard sear the steak when we’ve brought it up desired temp.
Other highly recommended items:
- Food thermometers:
- Cutting boards:
- Mineral oil for cutting boards:
AuthorJim BrownPrep Time10 minsCook Time40 minsTotal Time50 minsYour new favorite way to cook a mouth watering, perfectly cooked, beautifully seared steak!
Kitchen Essentials
- Rimmed baking sheet
- Raised wire rack that fits in the pan
- Instant read thermometer
- Cast iron skillet or out door grill to hard sear the steak when we've brought it up desired temp
Prep
Really simple prep. You're going to take the steak out of the fridge and dry it with paper towels. You'll salt and pepper it and leave it at room temp for an hour prior to cooking.
Ingredients
If you have time, dry the steaks with paper towels and salt and pepper them and put them on a wire rack and on the rimmed baking sheet and leave them uncovered in the fridge for 4-6 hours or overnight. This helps to get the surface dry which facilitates the crust formation.
If you don't have time for them to hang out in the fridge, dry with paper towel, salt and pepper them, place them on the wire rack inside the baking sheet and let them sit for 30 minutes to an hour. I took my almost directly from the fridge to the oven and they worked but it takes longer for them to come up to temp.
Pre-heat your oven to 250.
Once your oven is up to temp and your steaks have had a chance to hang out and lose a little of the fridge chill, you're going to put them in the oven and prep whatever you're going to enjoy with your steaks. Sautéed asparagus and mushrooms would be great. I'd suggest something sautéed unless you have a double oven, because roasting something would be tough since your oven is going to be occupied at 250.
I'd start checking on the internal temp on your steaks in about 20-25 minutes. I pulled mine just shy of 120 since I wanted to make sure that I kept it medium rare. Mine took longer than 30 minutes to reach 118 because I didn't leave it out of the fridge long enough for it to approach room temp before putting it in the oven.
Once your steaks are 1118-120 if you're looking for medium rare, 125-130 if you want them to be medium you'll remove them from the oven.
You're going to sear them on a screaming hot skillet or grill. Either one will work great, I like the skillet because I baste them with butter after I've seared them on each side with the avocado oil. I put a generous tablespoon of avocado oil in the skillet and put the steaks in just as it gets close to smoking. Don't over crowd the pan - I'd cooked two steaks at a time but only one at a time if they're enormous. You want to get a good sear on each side and also on the edges.
Add a knob of butter and spoon it over the steaks to add the finishing touch to the crust.
Enjoy!
Ingredients
