Ever had a moment when you’re coming home from work, excited to cook up that steak for dinner, when all of a sudden you realize that you never took it out of the freezer to thaw? Biggest bummer ever.

But having to thaw your steaks, and forgetting to thaw your steaks, may be a thing of the past.

A chef decided to experiment with this idea.

Tired of thawing his steaks before cooking them, Dan Souza decided to test something out. He is the editor-in-chief of Cooks Illustrated and the host of America’s Test Kitchen, so he has a lot of experience with culinary experiments.

Although most people believe that steaks should be thawed before cooking on a grill or pan, Souza decided to prove that wrong. so he came up with a steak experiment.

The experimental process.

To start out, Souza took one giant steak and cut it 4 ways. Each piece was tightly wrapped in plastic and then frozen. For one day before cooking, Souza put two in the refrigerator to thaw and left two steaks in the freezer.

On the day of the cooking, Souza and his team took all these steaks and seared them in a hot pan for a minute and a half to sear each side.

Once that was complete, he brought them to an oven to cook them until they were medium-rare.

What happened?

The downside first: obviously, the frozen steak took a while longer to cook. Souza and his team determined that medium-rare was at 125 degrees. It took the previously thawed steak 10-15 minutes to reach 125 degrees while the non-thawed steaks 18-22 minutes. But, a few extra cooking minutes could save you hours thawing the steak.

On the positive side: the steaks cooked pretty similarly. The frozen steaks only took 90 seconds to develop a nice brown crust, just like the thawed steak. In the same amount of time, both steaks browned in just the same way.

And there was even a surprise.

Little did this team of chefs realize, that their frozen steak would cook even better than the thawed steak.

First, they found something interesting when they cut open these steaks.

In a normal steak, before the yummy pink center, there is a ring of overcooked meat around it. In the frozen steak, these rings were much thinner, meaning that you’re eating a higher amount of the yummy pink meat!

Secondly, the chefs measured moisture loss in each steak.

They found that the frozen steaks lost an average of 9% less moisture during cooking. This is good because moisture retention helps your steak get that nice, juicy texture we all love.

But what about the taste testers?

According to the taste testers, the frozen steaks tasted better too! That being said, these were made by a professional chef, so I’m sure it all tasted amazing.

How does this work?

Although the steaks have differences in how they are stored, they still had the same cooking and preparing process. And, the frozenness helps the steak achieve a different cooking temperature and not be overcooked because of how slow it takes to cook them.

The takeaway.

Looks like thawing steak doesn’t have to be the hard and fast rule that it used to be! Although, as Souza notes, the best way to have steak is fresh, one that never had to be in a freezer. But, most of us don’t have access to that. But at least we do have this frozen steak hack!

For more great steak cooking tips, check out the video below!

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Source: Steak School, America’s Test Kitchen