Did you forget to take your steak out of the freezer?

You can remove your steak from the freezer and cook it straight away on the grill or in the fry pan but there are challenges.

I did this exercise when I was writing Your Meat Mate. I pan fried both a thawed and a frozen steak.

My outcome:

It was fine and easy to chew but it wasn’t as good quality as the cooked thawed steak.

Cooking the frozen steak was complicated because the exterior of the meat browned nicely on the high heat while the interior of the steak hadn’t finished cooking. It is challenging with this uneven cooking because, if the exterior is nicely browned and the interior still needs much more time to cook then the nice browning you achieved to the exterior becomes compromised. The more you have to cook the interior the more you will over cook the exterior – running the risk of burning it.

So, when it comes to frozen steaks, it is a juggling act when trying to get the interior and the exterior of the steaks cooked right.

Compared to thawed steaks, cooking frozen steaks requires more energy which means more energy costs. The frozen steaks are on the stove for a much longer time than the thawed steaks. Depending on the thickness they can be on the stove for up to 3/4 hour to achieve medium -rare. That is a long time (compared to the 15 mins it takes to achieve the same for a thawed steak of similar thickness).

Based on this exercise, while fresh steaks cook better than frozen steaks, in my opinion it is doable to cook steaks straight from the freezer if you don’t have the time to let it thaw.

Good luck on your meat cooking journey.

Want to learn more about cooking red meat? Your Meat Mate covers everything you need to know about cooking red meat to perfection.