Have you ever really wanted a juicy steak at night, but realize that you forgot to take the slab of meat out of the freezer? What will you do? Buy a steak at a restaurant and spend more money?

Well, you might be unaware that you don’t have to thaw your steak before cooking it!

An interesting experiment

The editor-in-chief of Cook’s Illustrated, and the host of America’s Test Kitchen, Dan Souza performed a steak experiment in this latest cooking clip.

The legend of cooking wanted to disprove the classic wisdom regarding the thawed steak. Many people say that a piece of meat needs to be at least room temperature before anything can be done to it.

He begins the experiment by grabbing a beautiful strip loan steak and slicing it into four pieces. He then places them in vacuum-sealed bags and freezes the meat.

One day before he cooks the meat, he thaws two pieces in the refrigerator, and two he leaves frozen.

In order to cook the meat, Souza puts all of the pieces in a hot skillet to sear each side and then transfers them to the appropriate oven. His oven is set at 275 and the meat was cooked to a temperature of 125 (Medium-rare)

Food scientists measured the moisture loss to tell which steak would be better and more tasteful.

The results are mind-blowing

Now obviously, frozen steaks are going to be much more difficult to cook. That definitely isn’t ideal but doesn’t necessarily ruin your plans either.

The thawed steaks cooked for about 10-15 minutes in the oven. On the other hand, the frozen steaks took around 18-22 minutes to get to 125 degrees which is the optimal temperature here. That isn’t too much time difference right? But! We still need the steaks to taste good.

But the most surprising thing about the whole endeavor was that the frozen steak came out with a brown crust from the skillet. Many people would say that it was too cold to heat at all in the pan. The 90-second sear worked great for both.

Both of the steaks looked similar after they were finished cooking.

But wait, there’s more!

The frozen steak actually cooked much better than the thawed one did.

Under the crust, is a bit of overcooked meat. If you work through that, you will find a tender, juicy center. The frozen steaks had less of the overcooked bands and a larger tender middle section. There was more of that juicy goodness in the frozen steaks than in the thawed steaks.

And on top of everything else, the frozen steaks had more juice! The thawed steaks lost 9% more moisture during cooking than the frozen ones did.

Time to eat!

Most importantly, these steaks need to taste good!

All the steaks seemed to be great because obviously there was a pro cooking them. But, the people tasting actually preferred the ones that had been frozen over the thawed ones!

How does this work?

Some of it makes sense, and some of it doesn’t.

A frozen steak will have that temperature difference on the outside, leading to less overcooking happening below the surface of the meat.

The process is slower on the steak, so it’s hard to overcook it.

The perfect steak

Souza says that the perfect steak will always be one that has never ever been frozen, but not all of us can just pull our steak right off the farm! It is helpful to know though!

Souza also recommended a great way to freeze your steaks if you want to go that route now that you know that steaks can be cooked frozen.

Put the steak on a baking sheet, uncovered, and on top of some parchment paper. Leave it in the freezer overnight, and let them dry out. This will take some of the ice crystals off of them and make the searing process much easier.

The next day you can wrap the steaks in plastic wrap and put them into a Ziplock or other type of bag. Then, place them back into the freezer.

Souza also recommends cooking your frozen steak in some oil. Fill the pan to about ⅛ of an inch of oil deep.

The final tip is to use a large pan. The smaller the pan, the more the splatter.

Be sure to scroll down to watch the video proof – but you should try this delicious experiment for yourself!

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Source: YouTube, Sweet and Savory