How Long Should Steak Rest? - Clover Meadows Beef

There are a few basic rules that apply when cooking meat. One of the biggest is to let meat rest. Even though this important step is the easiest, it’s also one of the most overlooked. Here’s how to let steak rest correctly so that you have a perfectly cooked, juicy steak.

So, you have your meal all planned out. You’ve selected the perfect steak, and seasoned it with salt and pepper. You let your steak come to room temperature, and then you grilled it to the perfect desired temperature on the grill. You’re sure you nailed the temperature sweet spot and steak doneness because you tested the steak with an instant read thermometer. While grilling, you remembered residual heat and carryover cooking, and you pulled your steak off the grill slightly before you reached the desired temperature.

Now, before you dive in to your juicy steak there is one more VERY important thing to do. Let the steak rest.

Resting meat applies to any piece of meat and any cooking process, from ribeye steak to chicken breasts to pork chops. Knowing how long to let steak rest and why it should rest will make a huge difference in achieving a perfectly cooked steak.

Jump to:

• How long should steak rest after cooking?
• Why does steak need to rest?
• How do you let steak rest? Covered or uncovered?
• Should you wrap steak in foil when resting?
• How to tell when steak should be taken off grill?
• Our in-home “resting steak” test
• Favorite kitchen tools when making steak:
• One more thing:

How long should steak rest after cooking?

If you ask a group of people, “How long do you let steak rest?” it’s likely that you’ll get several answers. This is because there isn’t one “proper way” to let meat rest, but everyone agrees it must be done for red meat and white meat. According to food scientists, there are three main methods to ensure meat rests for enough time:

• Rest meat for 5-minutes for every inch of thickness
• Rest meat for 10-minutes for each pound of meat
• Rest thick meat for as long as you cooked the meat

Using these three guidelines, a good rule of thumb is that a 1-inch thick steak should rest for approximately 5 minutes before serving. Thicker cuts of steak, such as ribeye or porterhouse, will benefit from resting for a slightly longer period, ranging from 10-15 minutes.  And if you’re cooking large cuts of meat, such as a roast or a beef brisket, it will need even longer to rest because it will take longer for the moisture to redistribute through larger cuts of beef.

Why does steak need to rest?

Allowing steak to rest is crucial for preserving the juiciness and results in a more evenly cooked and flavorful steak.

To understand the reason for this, you have to look at the anatomy of beef. Meat is a muscle and it has two main parts – protein and water.

When meat is raw, it’s about 70-75% water. When steak cooks, the connective tissues and muscle fibers contract because of the increased temperature. Then, the water is squeezed out of the fibers and the liquid moves towards the center of the cut.

If you cut meat before it rests, the juice goes directly on your plate because the juices haven’t had a chance to be reabsorbed by the meat. The moisture loss of a non-rested steak results in a very dry piece of steak.

However, if you want the best results, give the steak a chance to rest and the fibers relax and widen. This crucial step lets the meat’s juices redistribute throughout the meat so that you havec a juicy and tender steak.

As a side note, the process of fibers widening and then relaxing also explains why you can do a “steak touch test” and tell if a steak is done by touching it with your finger or with tongs — the firmer the meat, the more done it is.

How do you let steak rest? Covered or uncovered?

Resting a steak is very easy. Here’s a quick guide on how to do it, and we dive into more details below.

1. Remove the meat from the heat source.
2. Transfer the meat to a cutting board, warm plate, or serving platter.
3. Tent steak with aluminum foil. This will conserve some heat and still allow the air to circulate.
4. Remove the foil after the appropriate rest time.
5. Plate and serve.

Now that you have the basics down, there are two additional things you need to think about before pulling your steak from the heat source.

1. Remember residual heat and carryover cooking. When cooking steak, it’s important to remember that the internal temperature of the meat will always continue to rise slightly during the resting period. This means you should remove your meat from the heat source prior to reaching its target doneness temperature and let carryover cooking do the rest of the work for you. Otherwise, it will be overcooked.It’s best to pull your piece of meat off the heat source when the thermometer reads about 5-10°F lower than the desired doneness.
2. Covered or uncovered? Where and how the meat rests will also affect the carryover cooking. If the steak is removed from the heat source and placed on a cold surface, more heat will transfer into the room and less to the center of the meat. On the other hand, if it’s kept warm in the oven, the meat is likely to be overcooked. Our recommendation is to remove the steak from the heat source and place it on a warm plate, cutting board or serving platter. Next, tent the steak with aluminum foil. This will conserve some heat and still allow the air to circulate. Once you’ve tented the steak, that’s it. Don’t touch it or poke it or slice it. Let it rest for 5-7 minutes. Your taste buds will thank you as soon as you take your first bite!

Should you wrap steak in foil when resting?

Tenting steak in aluminum foil will keep cooked meat warm during the resting period while still allowing air to circulate around the steak. You do not need to tightly wrap steak in foil, instead losely tent steak.

How to tell when steak should be taken off grill?

There’s only one way to tell when steaks are done to the appropriate doneness – an instant-read digital meat thermometer.

Every kitchen needs a quality meat thermometer. Period. (Here’s our favorite)

When taking a temperature reading, measure in the center or the thickest part of the beef, not touching bone or fat. For steaks 1/2 inch or thicker, it’s usually best to insert an instant-read thermometer horizontally from the side.

Note: The temperatures in this chart are final doneness. You need to pull your beef off the heat about 5-10°F before these temperatures are reached.

Doneness	Temperature	Description
Rare	120-129°F	Cool, bright red center Soft to the touch
Medium Rare	130-134°F	Warm red center Beginning to firm up with red juices
Medium	135-144°F	Warm pink center; outer portions beginning to brown Completely firm to the touch with red juices
Medium Well	145-154°F	Slightly pink center Completely firm to the touch with brown juices
Well Done	155-164 °F	No pink or red Firm to touch
Ground Beef	160 °F	Fully brown throughout with no pink

Our in-home “resting steak” test

To help illustrate the difference between resting a steak versus not resting, we did our own test by grilling two identical strip steaks. We put them on the grill at the exact same time and cooked them for the exact same length of time. The only thing we did differently was cut into them at different times.

The pictures below tell the story the best.

Here are the two strip steaks we grilled.

We cut into the first steak immediately after it came off the grill.

Ugh! Look at all the juice on the plate. We ruined a perfectly good piece of meat for this photo and we don’t plan to do it again! This is what happens when you don’t rest steak. This steak will now taste dry because we didn’t allow the steak to rest and give time for the juice to redistribute throughout the steak.

Here’s the second steak. For this steak, we waited 5 minutes before cutting into it. As you can see, there’s still a little juice on the plate, but not as much as when we cut into the steak immediately from the grill. This steak will be juicy. Yum!

Favorite kitchen tools when making steak:

• Instant-read meat thermometer (we love this one)
• Cast iron skillet

One more thing:

Do you want to learn more about beef? Join our weekly e-newsletter where we share farm happenings, recipes and beef availability. Sign-up and get a cheat sheet with 9-must-ask questions before buying beef directly from a farmer. Or, we have an entire ebook about beef that goes through purchasing and preparing beef from a cattle farmer’s perspective.

Here are a few other recipes and links you may like:

• What everybody ought to know about beef cuts (guide)
• How to thaw beef: 4 best ways to defrost meat fast and safe
• Bacon wrapped filet mignon
• Easy garlic herb steak butter
• Best homemade dry rub recipe for beef roast
• The difference between a bull, steer, cow and heifer (video)

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