You don't need a grill to cook a good steak.

In fact, when I'm cooking one of our grass-fed steaks indoors, I've come to prefer a cast iron skillet. My go-to now is a Lancaster Cast Iron No. 8 skillet, along with Kanawha salt for the dry brine.

Neither is required. A good heavy cast iron skillet and a good cooking salt will work.

But after cooking a lot of our beef, this is the method—and the equipment—I've settled on.

Dry brine. Dry surface. Hot cast iron. Flip regularly. Use a thermometer. Rest.

There is some interesting science behind why each of those steps works.

Why Cast Iron Is So Good for Cooking Steak

The main advantage of cast iron is simple:

It holds heat.

When a cold steak hits a lightweight frying pan, the meat pulls heat from the metal and the temperature of the cooking surface drops.

A heavy cast iron skillet has considerable thermal mass. Once it is thoroughly preheated, it can transfer a lot of heat into the surface of the steak without cooling as quickly.

That helps us accomplish something very important: browning the outside of the steak before we overcook the inside.

And that browning isn't just about appearance.

At high surface temperatures, amino groups from proteins and amino acids react with reducing sugars. This begins a complicated series of chemical reactions collectively called the Maillard reaction.

Those reactions create many of the roasted aromas and browned flavors we associate with a properly cooked steak.

Cast iron gives us a very good surface for making that happen.

The Cast Iron Skillet I Use

I've cooked steaks in plenty of cast iron, including old Griswold pans that have been around longer than I have.

Lately, my go-to has been a Lancaster Cast Iron No. 8 skillet.

Lancaster Cast Iron is a small, young family-run Pennsylvania company making cast iron cookware here — the kind of business we're glad to support.

I like its smooth cooking surface, and it has enough mass to hold the heat I want when a steak hits the pan.

You certainly don't need this particular skillet. If you already have a good, well-seasoned cast iron pan, use it.

But I also like knowing where the things I use come from. And the actual people behind them.

Lancaster makes its cast iron cookware in Pennsylvania. It's a simple piece of American-made equipment that should last for generations rather than eventually becoming another appliance headed for the landfill.

For cooking our steaks, the No. 8 has become the pan I reach for.

Lancaster Cast Iron sent me a skillet to try. They didn't pay us to write this article. I've continued using it because I like the pan.

Step 1: Dry Brine the Steak 12–24 Hours Ahead

The best cast iron steak I've made lately actually starts the day before.

Pat the steak dry and season it on all sides with salt.

We generally use about ½ to ¾ teaspoon of salt per pound of beef, although the size and shape of the salt crystals matter, so don't treat that as an absolute measurement for every salt.

Place the steak on a wire rack over a tray and refrigerate it uncovered for 12–24 hours.

This is called dry brining.

And quite a bit happens during that time.

What Salt Does to a Steak

A steak naturally contains water.

When salt first touches the surface, some of that moisture dissolves the salt and creates a concentrated brine. Initially, you may actually see the surface of the steak become wetter.

Given enough time, sodium and chloride ions move below the surface.

Salt also changes the ionic environment around muscle proteins such as actin and myosin, affecting how those proteins interact with one another and with water.

Meanwhile, the refrigerator is doing something equally useful:

It's drying the outside of the steak.

That becomes very important when we put the steak into the cast iron.

The Salt I'm Using

I've also changed the salt I'm using for our steaks.

I'm now dry brining with Kanawha salt, produced from underground brine in West Virginia.

You don't need Kanawha salt for this method.

A good kosher salt, sea salt or other cooking salt will work. The basic chemistry of dry brining comes from salt itself.

I use Kanawha salt because I like both the product and its connection to this part of the country. The J.Q. Dickinson Salt-Works is a family-run business in West Virginia, bringing the Kanawha Valley’s centuries-old salt-making tradition forward using brine drawn from deep beneath the Appalachian Mountains.

The Kanawha Valley in present-day West Virginia became one of America's major early salt-producing regions. By the early 1800s, Kanawha salt was moving throughout the Ohio Valley and was particularly important for preserving meat.  In 1851 Kanawha Salt was voted the best salt in the wold  at the very first World's Fair in London

We're raising cattle on pasture in Indiana today.

There's something sensible to me about bringing beef raised here together with a salt that has been part of Ohio Valley food history for more than two centuries.

J.Q. Dickinson Salt-Works sent us salt to try. They didn't pay us to write this article. We're continuing to use it because we like it, and we're planning to stock it for our customers.

Step 2: Get the Surface Dry

This is one of the most important parts of cooking steak in a cast iron skillet.

Water gets in the way of browning.

Before the surface of a wet steak can become extremely hot, considerable energy has to go toward heating and evaporating that water. Evaporation also cools the surface.

That's another reason I like the 12–24 hour uncovered dry brine.

By the time we're ready to cook, we've accomplished two things:

The steak is seasoned below the surface, and the exterior is considerably drier.

About 20–30 minutes before cooking, remove the steak from the refrigerator.

Don't rinse it.

Don't add another layer of salt.

If you see obvious moisture on the surface, gently blot it with a paper towel.

Now we're ready for the pan.

Step 3: Preheat the Cast Iron Skillet

Put your dry cast iron skillet over medium-high to high heat and give it time to preheat.

Don't rush this part.

The same mass that makes cast iron so good at holding heat also means a heavy skillet takes some time to heat thoroughly.

I'm using my Lancaster No. 8, but the same principle applies to any good heavy cast iron skillet.

We want the cooking surface thoroughly hot before the steak goes into it.

Should You Put Oil in a Cast Iron Skillet for Steak?

I use a small amount of beef tallow.

You don't need a pool of it. We only need enough to lightly coat the cooking surface.

The fat helps fill the tiny irregularities between the steak and the skillet, improving contact and heat transfer.

And we're cooking beef, so beef fat makes sense to me.

Once the pan is hot and the tallow is ready, add the steak.

You should immediately hear a strong sizzle.

Step 4: Start Building the Crust

Put the steak into the hot skillet and give the first side some uninterrupted contact with the iron.

We're trying to get the surface hot enough for Maillard browning.

But we're not trying to burn it.

There's an important difference between a deeply browned crust and a blackened steak.

The Maillard reaction creates a tremendous number of desirable aroma and flavor compounds.

Burning eventually creates bitter flavors.

We're looking for deep brown, not black.

And despite an old piece of cooking advice you may have heard, searing isn't "sealing in the juices."

It doesn't.

We sear because browning creates flavor.

Step 5: Flip the Steak More Than Once

We've all heard the rule:

Only flip a steak once.

I don't follow it anymore.

Once I've established the initial browning, I prefer to turn the steak regularly—roughly every minute or so.

There's good reasoning behind this.

The surface touching the cast iron gets extremely hot while the center remains much cooler. Regular flipping reduces that temperature difference somewhat by alternating which surface receives the most intense heat.

That can help us cook the interior more evenly while continuing to build crust on both sides.

This is especially useful with a thick steak.

Instead of thinking:

Four minutes on this side. Four minutes on that side.

I'm thinking:

What's happening to the crust, and what's happening to the internal temperature?

The thermometer decides when the steak is done.

Not the clock.

Step 6: Don't Forget the Edges

A thick ribeye or New York strip has more than two cooking surfaces.

Use your tongs to hold the steak upright briefly and brown the exposed edges.

Pay particular attention to the exterior fat on a ribeye or strip.

You're giving those surfaces direct contact with the hot iron and developing some of the same browning you've created on the broad sides of the steak.

Again, we're looking for browned—not burned.

Step 7: What About Butter, Garlic and Herbs?

Many cast iron steak recipes eventually tell you to add butter, garlic, rosemary and thyme and start spooning everything over the steak.

There's nothing wrong with doing that.

I usually don't.

When I'm cooking good grass-fed beef, I'm trying to taste the beef.

Salt, beef and a little tallow are enough for me.

If you like butter, add it toward the end after reducing the heat somewhat.

Butter contains water and milk solids, and those milk solids can burn at the high temperatures we're using for the initial sear.

So think of butter as a finishing step rather than the cooking fat you need to start the steak.

Step 8: Cook Steak by Temperature, Not Time

This may be the single most important part of this entire guide.

Use an instant-read thermometer.

Don't cook steak according to a chart telling you how many minutes per side.

A 1-inch steak and a 1½-inch steak aren't going to cook identically.

Neither are a filet and a ribeye.

Starting temperature, skillet temperature, thickness and the particular piece of beef all affect cooking time.

Internal temperature tells us what's actually happening inside the steak.

For Tyner Pond grass-fed steaks, we generally prefer medium-rare.

Those are guidelines rather than guarantees.

The steak doesn't stop cooking the instant it leaves the skillet.

Heat stored in the hotter exterior continues traveling toward the cooler center. This is called carryover cooking.

The amount varies with thickness, cooking temperature and the steak itself.

That's why we pull it a little early.

Step 9: Rest the Steak

After removing the steak from the skillet, I give it roughly 8–10 minutes to rest.

We've changed our thinking somewhat about why this matters.

You'll often hear that resting gives the juices time to "redistribute" throughout the steak. That's an oversimplification.

The more important thing happening is temperature equalization and carryover cooking.

When a steak comes out of a hot cast iron skillet, its exterior is considerably hotter than its center. Heat continues moving inward even though we've stopped applying external heat.

That's why we remove the steak before it reaches our desired final internal temperature.

The rest allows that process to finish.

Why I Rest Steak in Butcher Paper

I now rest our steaks loosely in butcher paper.

Think about everything we've done so far.

We spent 12–24 hours drying the exterior.

Then we heated cast iron and carefully developed a browned crust.

It doesn't make much sense to immediately seal the steak inside something that traps steam against that surface.

Foil is very good at retaining heat and moisture.

But that's not necessarily what I want here.

Butcher paper breathes.

I loosely tent the steak so it has some protection while still allowing moisture to escape.

Then I check the temperature again before serving.

Can You Cook Steak in a Regular Frying Pan?

Absolutely.

You don't have to own cast iron to cook steak in a pan.

A good heavy stainless steel frying pan can work very well.

The principles don't change:

Dry steak. Hot pan. Good surface contact. Internal temperature. Rest.

What I would avoid is a very lightweight frying pan that loses a great deal of heat when a cold steak hits it.

There isn't anything magical happening because the pan is made from cast iron.

We're taking advantage of its physical properties—particularly its ability to store heat.

That's what makes it particularly well suited to steak.

What Is the Best Steak to Cook in Cast Iron?

Most tender steak cuts work very well in cast iron.

Ribeye

Cast iron is particularly good for ribeye because you can brown the broad surfaces and then use tongs to put the exterior fat directly against the hot iron.

New York Strip

This may be my favorite steak for cast iron. Its relatively uniform shape makes it easy to cook evenly, and the exterior fat can be browned separately.

Denver Steak

Denver steak works very well in a skillet. It's generally thick enough to develop a substantial crust without immediately overcooking the center.

Sirloin

Sirloin is relatively lean, which makes careful temperature control particularly important. Cast iron plus a thermometer is a very good combination.

Filet

Filets are thick, so don't judge them by appearance. An instant-read thermometer is especially useful here.

Regardless of cut, the rule remains the same:

Cook to internal temperature, not minutes per side.

Why We Cook Grass-Fed Beef Differently

Our cattle aren't raised to produce beef that imitates feedlot beef.

They spend their lives harvesting pasture.

At Tyner Pond Farm, we move cattle regularly onto fresh forage and give grazed areas time to recover before the cattle return.

We're interested in what that system produces: beef from a known place, raised by people you can actually talk to.

Grass-finished beef also has measurable nutritional differences from grain-finished beef, including generally higher omega-3 fatty acids and a lower omega-6-to-omega-3 ratio.

And the production system matters beyond the steak.

It affects the animal, the pasture, the soil, the local processor and the resilience of our local food supply.

That's a broader definition of quality than simply looking at how much white fat appears inside a piece of beef.

If you're going to make that investment in your food, I think it's worth learning how to cook it properly.

Indiana Beef, West Virginia Salt and Pennsylvania Iron

There's another reason I've come to like this particular combination.

Tyner Pond grass-fed beef from Indiana.

Kanawha salt from West Virginia.

Lancaster cast iron from Pennsylvania.

None of these things are new technologies.

People have raised cattle, made salt and cooked with iron for a very long time.

And none of the three products needs much explanation about where it came from.

That's increasingly important to me.

We talk a lot at Tyner Pond Farm about knowing the source of your food. I don't think it's unreasonable to apply some of that same thinking to the other things we bring into our homes.

You don't need my particular salt or my particular skillet to follow this method.

Any good salt. Any good heavy skillet.

But if you're asking what I'm actually using in my kitchen now:

Kanawha salt. Lancaster No. 8. Tyner Pond grass-fed beef.

That's become my method.

---

Frequently Asked Questions About Cooking Steak in Cast Iron

How long do you cook a steak in a cast iron skillet?

We don't recommend cooking steak strictly by time. Steak thickness, starting temperature, skillet temperature and desired doneness all affect cooking time. Use an instant-read thermometer and cook according to internal temperature.

What temperature should a cast iron skillet be for steak?

The skillet should be thoroughly preheated and hot enough to produce an immediate strong sizzle when the steak makes contact. Medium-high to high heat generally works well, but stovetops and skillets vary.

Do you put oil in a cast iron skillet when cooking steak?

A small amount of high-heat cooking fat helps improve contact between the steak and skillet. We prefer beef tallow and use only enough to lightly coat the cooking surface.

Should you cook steak in butter or oil?

We start with beef tallow. Butter can be added near the end if desired, after reducing the heat. Its milk solids are more likely to burn at the temperatures used for the initial sear.

How often should you flip steak in a cast iron skillet?

You don't have to follow the old rule of flipping only once. After establishing some initial browning, we like turning the steak approximately every minute while monitoring internal temperature.

Can you cook grass-fed steak in a cast iron skillet?

Yes. It's one of our preferred methods. Cast iron provides excellent surface browning while an instant-read thermometer gives us precise control over internal temperature.

How do you keep steak from sticking to cast iron?

Start with a properly preheated skillet, a dry steak and a small amount of cooking fat. Once the surface of the meat begins to brown, it generally releases more readily. Don't immediately force it away from the iron.

Should you dry brine steak before cooking it in cast iron?

We recommend it. We dry brine our grass-fed steaks uncovered for 12–24 hours. Besides seasoning the meat below the surface, uncovered refrigeration dries the exterior and prepares it for better browning in the hot skillet.

Can you cook steak in a frying pan instead of cast iron?

Yes. A heavy stainless steel frying pan works well. Cast iron is useful because of its heat retention, but the important principles—dry surface, high heat and internal temperature control—remain the same.

What is the best doneness for grass-fed steak?

We generally prefer medium-rare, around 130–135°F final internal temperature. We usually remove the steak from the skillet around 125–130°F and allow carryover cooking to finish it during the rest.

---

The Tyner Pond Cast Iron Steak Method

If you want the short version, this is it:

1. Dry brine with salt for 12–24 hours.

2. Refrigerate uncovered to dry the surface.

3. Take the steak out 20–30 minutes before cooking.

4. Thoroughly preheat a heavy cast iron skillet.

5. Add a small amount of beef tallow.

6. Sear the steak and begin flipping regularly after the initial browning.

7. Brown the edges and exterior fat.

8. Use an instant-read thermometer rather than cooking by time.

9. For medium-rare, pull around 125–130°F.

10. Rest loosely in butcher paper for about 8–10 minutes.

That's it.

No complicated equipment. No complicated recipe.

Just good beef, salt, iron, heat and a thermometer.