How to cook a bone-in steak, perfectly.

Don’t be intimidated by bone-in steak cuts – with the right method it’s easy to guarantee perfect steak at home, every time.

Season the steak and prepare the cooking rack.

First and foremost, preheat your oven to 250f. Prepare an oven tray by covering it in foil (to catch any messy drippings) and placing a cooling rack on top. The rack allows air to circulate on both sides of the steak so you don’t need to flip it. Pat your steak dry with paper towel, and season liberally with salt on both sides. Quick note here – I only like to season with salt because pepper can often burn at the sear stage, so you can add it at the table. Now, put the steak straight into the oven.

Cook steak until the internal temperature reaches 130f.

checking steak temperature with a thermapen

The steak will take anywhere from 45-65 minutes to reach temperature, so start checking it about the 40 minute mark just to keep an eye on it. Better to be under than over! You’ll need to use a precision thermometer like a Thermapen to check the internal temperature, precision at this stage will completely determine the final outcome of the cook. Once it reaches a medium rare 130f, remove from the oven.

Rest your steak.

steak resting before sear

Don’t freak out, it’s not going to look very appealing at this stage. Now that your steak has completed the long cook, you’re going to wrap it in foil and let it rest for at least 15 minutes. Here’s the really cool part about this method – because you’re resting your steak now, you’ll be able to eat it piping hot after it’s been seared, as there will be no need to rest a second time!

Sear the steak in a hot skillet.

Get a skillet super, mega, uber, seriously hot. Have I made this part clear? A smokingly hot pan is key for the sear. If it’s not, you’ll either overcook the edges to compensate, or end up with an underwhelming exterior. Once it’s very hot, drop the steak in cook for about a minute on each side, no more. You can flip back to each side for a further 30 seconds, but don’t cook it longer than this. To finish, use tongs to hold the fat side down in the pan, to render and sizzle any extra fat.

Enjoy your perfectly medium rare steak.

medium rare bone in steak strips

That’s it, you did it! Now you can sit back and enjoy a perfectly cooked (and piping hot!) steak.