Why You Should Stop Salting Your Steak Before Grilling, According to My Parents
Learn from the pros.
Dotdash Meredith
A properly grilled steak is a thing of beauty, with gorgeous charred grill marks and a juicy, perfectly cooked center. But there’s no room to hide when it comes to grilling a steak—you either nail it or you miss, which can make the cooking process feel intimidating to folks who don’t grill steaks all the time. Fortunately, there are some tried and true tricks that will help you keep your steak moist, tender, and full of flavor. We asked Allrecipes Allstar Bri Appleton to share her favorite tidbit of steak-grilling wisdom.
Appleton knows her way around a grill. She’s learned the ins and outs from her parents, who have been Kansas City Barbecue Society Food Representatives for the past nine years and judges for the Kansas City Barbecue Society for 16 years. For anyone who isn’t immersed in the thriving barbecue subculture, KCBS is essentially the biggest name in BBQ. The organization sanctions and judges BBQ competitions throughout the country, using a meticulous numerical system and a blind judging process that eliminates bias and focuses on three categories—taste, texture, and tenderness.
Appleton says a standout lesson she learned from her parents is to salt a steak after grilling, rather than before. While you might be tempted to load up your steak with kosher salt and black pepper before tossing it on the grill, Appleton says the key is actually to wait to add the salt until the steak is done cooking.
“Salt removes juice,” Appleton says. “Salt also releases [the] meat’s flavors. Adding salt last-minute to the outside allows it to draw out the moisture then dissolve, creating a brine that will be reabsorbed back into the steak as it rests.”
What Appleton does do before grilling is coat the steak—which she’s allowed to come to room temperature—with “a ton of fresh-cracked pepper on both sides,” she says. “Then I grill it, pull it off onto a plate to rest, immediately salt it and the juices stop escaping. I also add a pat of butter since beef loves fat.”
The freshly ground pepper adds flavor that complements and amplifies the beef; the salt, when added at the end, wakes up the flavors and delivers award-worthy tenderness. And the butter helps give the steak a beautiful, rounded bite.
Where did her parents acquire this gem of grilling wisdom? Her dad says he’s learned from his own mistakes over years of trial and error, according to Appleton. “He always reminds me that cooking is a journey, not a destination.”
Read the original article on All Recipes.
