The Best Grilled Steak You’ll Ever Make (Restaurant-Quality)

It does not take a lot to grill up a steak

to make it unbelievable.

I'm Matt Abdoo, chef and pitmaster,

and today I'm gonna show you

how to grill up the best steak of your life.

Let's keep it simple. This is Grilling 101.

[upbeat music]

The secret to a great grilled steak is first and foremost

selecting the right cut

and all the right quality indicators you're looking for.

The methods and procedures I'm gonna be showing you

will apply to strip steak, rib eye, filet,

skirt steak, flank steak.

Name all the grillable cuts,

and it's all gonna be more or less the same.

Today we're gonna be treating ourselves

to a New York strip steak,

one of my favorite steakhouse cuts.

If you have the time to pull the steak out

and let it come to room temperature before cooking it,

I think it is better if the steak has an opportunity

to warm up a little bit.

This steak is about an inch or so thick.

That's a really important thing you want to look for

in a good-quality steak.

The thicker the steak

is gonna give us more of an opportunity

to develop that beautiful eye

so we have that beautiful medium rare

to medium pink center on our steak.

If the steak is a little too thin,

by the time you've developed all that char

and crust on the outside,

the steak usually gets overcooked.

This is a big, thick cut of meat,

so don't be afraid to season it aggressively

because by the time all that salt permeates the meat,

the seasoning level is gonna be just perfect.

I like to add a little bit of oil to my steak

before I season it for two reasons.

First, it's gonna help that salt and pepper

really stick to the meat.

And second, it's gonna also help release it

from the grill grates when it's cooking.

Simple is king,

and there's nothing more simple than salt and pepper.

That's all you need, guys, to make the steak shine

because again, we have a really great cut of meat here

and we want the flavor of the beef to be the star.

The salt and pepper's just gonna bring out

all the flavor to it.

I like to season from a little bit up high, guys.

We want the salt to evenly distribute itself

all over the meat.

If you get too close,

you're just gonna have pockets of seasoning,

and that's never gonna be good for anybody.

But you can see I'm going pretty aggressively

on this side of the steak with salt.

And then we're gonna do the same with black pepper

to really maximize the flavor of that beef

and to get that restaurant-quality grilled steak.

This is how we do it.

Once this side's done, we're gonna give it a flip.

I'm gonna take just a little bit more oil.

It doesn't take a lot.

And then right back at it with a good amount of salt.

If your steak is thick enough,

it'll stand up on its side on its own.

And we're just gonna hit that

with some more coarsely grated black pepper.

Now that this gorgeous New York strip steak

is all seasoned up,

we're gonna let it dry brine for about 10 to 15 minutes

while we fire up our grill and get it nice and hot.

It's just kind of a way of getting it

to be a little bit more seasoned on the inside

and letting the salt have time to react to all that meat

instead of just making a crust on the outside of the steak.

[upbeat music]

Today we're cooking on a gas grill.

I love the convenience of a gas grill.

For me personally, I'm grilling three or four nights a week.

It's simple, it's fast, it keeps the mess outside, right?

And it's easy cleanup.

But if you guys have a charcoal grill at home,

all of these steps are gonna be exactly the same.

Before we start cooking,

it's really important that we clean our grill.

You don't want any residual char or charcoal

or burnt bits on the grill.

They're gonna cause the grill to not get hot in those spots.

And it's also gonna put

that burnt weird flavor on your food.

There's two basic styles of cleaning grills.

The first is a cold grill brush,

and these are usually indicated

by having plastic bristles on them.

The second style is a wire or metal grill brush.

Now this one here has got that little scraper on the end

and it's got the metal wire brushes.

These are good to use when the grill is hot.

And also if you're doing lots of cooks,

it's good to clean in between cooking.

Always check it to see if there's any residual bristles

or anything that could be on that.

But no matter what you have,

just make sure if the grill's hot,

we're not using the plastic one.

And also just make sure that we're cleaning the grill

every time before we fire it up

just to make sure we're getting rid

of all the dirty carbon bits that are on those grates.

Now it's time to preheat the grill.

It's a very important step.

We want that char, we want that flavor.

We want those grill marks to happen.

And if our grill is cold or not fired up properly,

we're never gonna achieve that

while also keeping the center of the steak

nice and medium rare.

First things first, whenever you're lighting your grill,

safety tip: make sure the lid is open.

We don't wanna turn on the knobs

and potentially build up a gas bubble

inside the chamber and then light it

and then next thing it's going boom.

And it's terrifying everybody around you

and your wife's running outside asking you if you're okay.

I love cooking on what's called zone cooking, guys.

This is something that's gonna be super important to you

when you're cooking at home

because it's gonna give us the ability

to have all super high heat on one side,

with the lower heat on the other to finish cooking

so we can just have more control

over whatever it is that we're cooking on the grill.

The right side of this grill,

I have what's called a sear zone.

And what we want

is the highest heat you can get on your grill

for this particular cook, for this steak,

because we really wanna get that good char on the outside.

On the other side of the grill, I'm gonna turn the knobs on,

but I'm gonna turn 'em down all the way to low.

If it needs to finish cooking a little bit more,

I can move the steak

over to the lower heat side of the grill

to finish it cooking

to get to that perfect temperature doneness on the inside

without worrying about over-charring

or burning the outside of the steak.

Our grill's lit.

Now I'm gonna close the lid

and I'm gonna let the grill preheat.

I kind of want this temperature to be around 600 to 650.

That way I can develop that really deep,

beautiful grill marks on the steak.

[upbeat music]

Our grill's hot. Let's get the steak on there.

You might be saying, the steak got a little bit wet,

and that is completely normal.

That's the dry brining taking effect.

That's the salt hitting the meat,

extracting the moisture out.

It is completely okay

that it's got that little sheen in the outside.

When we put it on the hot, hot grill,

it's just gonna evaporate

and create that awesome char on the outside of our steak.

What I like to do

is place it 45 degrees against the grill grates.

So when we cook it at an angle like that,

and when I turn the steak 90 degrees

after that two-minute mark,

it's gonna develop those really beautiful diamonds,

char marks, grill marks on the steak that we're looking for.

That sizzle means we're getting that high heat.

I'm gonna let that steak cook for two minutes.

Don't touch it. Don't move it.

Don't play with it.

The more you move the steak

and every time you pick it up, look at it, turn it around,

you're losing that heat, you're losing that momentum.

It's gonna take even longer to develop that caramelization.

So just leave it and let it be still.

Our two-minute timer has gone off,

so the first thing I'm gonna do

is I'm gonna take a little sneak peek.

Listen here. If the steak sticks, it's not ready to flip.

That goes for steak, that goes for chicken,

that goes for burgers, that goes for fish.

The meat will tell you when it's ready to flip.

And the best way to tell

is we're gonna go by one angle of it

and just start lifting it up.

And if it has no resistance to lifting,

that's giving me a good sign

that the steak is nice and charred

and that it's gonna have those grill marks

and it's ready to flip and turn.

Lift it,

turn it,

and place it back down on an unused part of that grill

so that we can get those really nice hot, hot part

of the grill grates to mark off that steak.

And we're gonna set our timer again,

two minutes and we'll be right back.

Now it's time to take a peek and see how we did.

It's not sticking. Always a good sign.

We're gonna take it, we're gonna lift it,

and we're gonna put it back

on another unused part of the grill.

And you can see how we got all that nice char marks

happening over here on the steak.

If you develop perfect hash marks or not, it's okay.

If they don't come out great,

it's still gonna be a delicious steak

as long as you're developing that char.

And then we're gonna check

for the internal temperature doneness.

There is no better tool on the planet.

The thermometer is the best way to be consistent

and even across the board.

We're gonna put it in.

The coldest part of the steak is where we wanna find.

Now right now we're at 119 degrees.

We're gonna let it finish cooking on this one side

so that the final temperature

comes up to around 125 degrees.

For me, when I'm cooking, 118 to 120

is usually around the rare zone for New York strip steak.

123 to 125 is usually around medium rare.

126 to 130 is around medium.

135 to 145 are the varying degrees of medium well.

And then a well done steak is gonna be 165 degrees

so that there's no pink at all within the center of it.

I feel like the steak is at the point where I want it to be,

so I'm gonna lift it up off the grill.

We're gonna let it rest on a wire rack.

You need to let the steak rest.

As the steak is resting,

all the juices, all that moisture inside the steak,

it's kind of coming back inside the protein structure.

If you cut into it too soon,

all that beautiful juice and flavor

on the inside of the steak

is gonna leach out onto your plate or platter.

For steak this thick, five to eight minutes

is really kind of an ideal zone to let that meat rest.

[upbeat music]

As the steak is resting, I love making a chimichurri sauce.

It takes just a few minutes to make.

It's a mixture of herbs, oil, vinegar,

some spices and seasonings

that really bring that meat to life.

Chimichurri recipes are gonna vary from house to house,

from person to person, and it's all okay.

I like the combination of mint, chive, and parsley.

It may not be super traditional,

but for me, this is the way

that I like making my chimichurri.

It's about the herbs coming together

with the oil and the vinegar,

the garlic, the chili, the oregano, the salt, the pepper,

which really evolves it into this beautiful flavor profile.

Now that I have my herbs cut,

we're gonna go into cutting up some shallots.

I'm making these a little bit coarser, a little bit larger

because I like that texture in my chimichurri.

Garlic.

Give your garlic a smash

and then just chop, chop, chop, chop

as fine as you want it to go.

I love the Microplane, especially in a chimichurri

because it's gonna make the garlic super fine.

Finer the garlic's gonna be,

the more pronounced that garlic flavor

is gonna develop in my sauce.

Some kosher salt. Some ground black pepper.

Some dried oregano.

A little bit of crushed red pepper flakes. Some olive oil.

This is gonna be regular olive oil.

And then the last bit is our acid.

And for this, I'm using a little red wine vinegar.

You have to have that acid

because that's really what's gonna brighten up the sauce

and bring all the flavors together.

This chimichurri for me,

I like it to be kind of thick and herbaceous

and herby like this.

[upbeat music]

Our steak is now cooked and rested.

Before we get cutting,

let's talk about the grain of the steak.

The grain is referring to the muscle fibers of the protein

within that piece of meat.

You can see here on this raw steak,

if you get really close up,

the lines that are going straight.

That means if I want to cut the steak against the grain,

the lines are running this way going down it,

we wanna cut against the grains going this way.

It's gonna end up for more marbled and tender bite.

On the cooked steak,

it gets a lot harder to see where those grains are

because we cooked it and it's charred

and it's covering up those muscle fibers

and those muscle strands.

Don't be afraid to make a cut into the steak.

And if it's looking

like you have those straight lines going across,

we're just gonna give our steak a turn

and we're gonna try to cut again

until it looks like it's a marbled interior.

That's when we know that we've cut correctly

against the grain.

While you're slicing the steak,

the grain could change and that's okay too,

but we're just gonna keep cutting right against.

And this is a great example

of when you're cutting with the grain,

when you see those straight fibers or those straight lines.

That's what cutting with the grain is gonna look like

versus when you go over here

and you see a more marbled texture.

Now if the steak is sliced, we're just gonna put

a little chimichurri over the top of it.

Restaurant-quality grilled New York strip steak

with this bright, vibrant, herbaceous,

beautiful chimichurri sauce.

And I know if we just keep it simple and we're patient,

everything we learned here today is gonna apply

for when you're grilling in your backyard.

It's time to give it a taste

for all this amazing work we put into this steak.

Let's give it a bite.

Beefy, meaty, bright, herbaceous.

This is a restaurant-quality steak cooked in our backyard.

And I know by following these simple instructions,

you guys can do this at home too.