Interesting article from America’s Test Kitchen. I’m going to have to try this. Anybody have any experience cooking unthawed steaks?
I think it’s clickbait. Because the vast, VAST majority of American grillers don’t do a two stage cooking. This only works if (as the article states) you fast brown the meat and then finish in a low temp oven. Most (non-chef) backyard grillers are just doing the whole thing on the grill. In which case, you’ll have a beautiful looking steak that is raw and/or still frozen in the middle, or overcooked.
Sure, if you use a two stage process, there is no reason it shouldn’t work, but at that point, I doubt you’re loosing all that much moisture anyway.
Once the browning process is complete, pop that seared beauty into the oven at 275 degrees Fahrenheit, using a meat thermometer to ensure the middle hits a nice 125 degrees Fahrenheit for a perfect medium-rare cook. Then, let it rest covered for at least a few minutes — this allows the juices time to settle after warming in the oven where the fats inside were rendered and turned to liquid. Otherwise, the liquids are going to pour right out when your knife goes in.
Eh, feels like you’d be better off just doing a reverse sear. Maybe if you had a ton of frozen steaks I guess.
I think that I will give the method a try. Having another method for cooking a steak can’t hurt.
I toss frozen meat/fish into the sous vide cooker all the time.
Yeah, that’s what I was thinking too. Same basic procedure just switched around a little bit, and the reverse sear is more controllable anyway.
For just straight-up grilling not involving an oven or sous-vide circulator, the best plan in my experience is to use thick steaks (> 1" thick), a leave-in probe thermometer, and a grill that you can set up with two zones.
Basically, you do something similar to a reverse sear at that point- cook it to about 10-15 degrees below your intended temp, then switch it to the hot side/burner (high as you can go), and sear it from there. The reason you’d cook low then sear, is that you’ll remove most surface moisture during the cooking time, and get a better sear as a result.
Note that even the article itself acknowledges that a fresh steak (never frozen) is best.
I’ve heard of this before but have never tried it, and don’t plan to. The two-step process seems like more trouble than it’s worth, and entails a certain loss of control – I can generally tell how a steak is doing on the grill by look and feel as well as timing. Hamburgers, however, unless they’re excessively thick, can be grilled fresh, frozen, or anywhere in between if you know what you’re doing. I prefer grilling them fresh, however.
My only rule for frozen steak is that fast-thawing in a microwave is a bad idea. You lose a lot of moisture that way. Slow thawing in the fridge works best, although in a pinch careful thawing at room temperature can work.
Not steak, but early this past summer I had a hankering for ribs that day. It was noon and I had two racks of back ribs frozen solid in the freezer. I had heard in theory that it could be done, but only if the meat was completely frozen (partially thawed and you risk overcooking the outside or leaving the inside too raw).
So I threw them ribsicles on the cool side of the grill, turned them every 1/2 hour for the first two hours, started applying dry rub only after a side had thawed / cooked enough for the rub to stick, foil-wrapped after a couple hours, and 4-1/2 hours later I had delicious, falling-off the bone tender ribs. Worked so well I did it a couple more times since then.
I throw my ahi steaks frozen on my blazing-hot cast iron pan. Three minutes each side and you have it cooked perfectly rare.
Interesting fact: You know how dogs eat anything and everything? My new puppy refuses to eat ahi tuna.
This was my first thought when I saw the thread title.
Yeah! I like my steaks pretty rare so if I start from frozen while I start my wife’s from fridge-thawed, hers will be medium-well by the time mine is rare-to-medium and we’ll both end up with steaks just the way we like 'em.
Hopefully. 
Still seems like tricky timing. I’m still new at the grilling game.
–G!
I cooked frozen steaks all the time when I was a line cook. Frozen chicken too.