Cast Iron Ribeye

A cast iron ribeye is the steak Hell's Kitchen puts on its menu, a 16-ounce rib eye with grilled broccolini and peppercorn sauce at the Las Vegas restaurant, and the pan is the whole point: cast iron holds enough heat to keep browning a cold, thick steak where a thin pan stalls. Gordon Ramsay's rule for the cut, from his beef lesson, is that a ribeye this marbled needs a proper sear and the confidence to render its fat, because the heavier the sear, the more flavor. The method below is that: salt ahead, a long preheat, a hard sear, the fat cap on its edge, a butter baste with garlic and thyme, a 125°F pull and a real rest. It serves two from one big steak.

The recipe card at the bottom has the amounts and the numbered steps. This guide covers choosing the ribeye, the salt and the dry surface, why cast iron needs its preheat, the sear and the fat cap, the butter baste, the pull temperature and the rest, and the plate. It sits in the site's recipes section beside the Hell's Kitchen New York strip and the filet mignon, which use the same pan discipline on leaner cuts, and the most tender steaks guide ranks the cuts.

The Ribeye: Thick, Marbled, and Dry

Buy one thick steak rather than two thin ones. A ribeye an inch and a half thick, 16 to 20 ounces, bone-in or boneless, gives the sear time to build a crust before the center passes medium-rare; a three-quarter-inch steak is gray by the time it browns. The ribeye's advantage over every other steak is fat: Certified Angus Beef describes the cut as rich, tender and juicy with generous marbling throughout, and that marbling is intramuscular fat that melts during cooking and bastes the meat from inside. Ramsay grades a ribeye by eye on exactly that, the distribution of the marbling and the dark red of the meat, and calls the spinalis cap that rides the top of the eye the most sought-after piece of beef in his restaurants. Look for even marbling and a thick cap.

Salt it early or salt it late, never in between. Salt on a steak draws moisture to the surface by osmosis within minutes, and a steak seared 10 or 15 minutes after salting goes into the pan wet and steams. Given 40 minutes or more, that brine dissolves the salt and is drawn back into the meat, seasoning it deeply and leaving the surface dry again, which is the best case; salting seconds before the pan is the second-best case. Set the salted steak on a rack in the refrigerator, uncovered, for 40 minutes to overnight if there is time, and take it out 30 minutes before cooking so the center loses its chill. Pat it dry regardless. Water on the surface cannot exceed 212°F, and browning does not start until the surface passes about 284°F, so a wet steak spends its first minute boiling instead of searing.

Why Cast Iron, and Why It Needs the Long Preheat

Cast iron sears steak well for one reason and needs care for another, and both come from the same property. Iron is a poor conductor of heat compared with aluminum or copper, so a cast-iron skillet heats slowly and unevenly, hot over the burner and cooler at the rim; but a heavy skillet stores a great deal of heat once it has it, so when a cold 20-ounce steak lands on it the surface temperature barely dips and the crust keeps forming. A thin pan does the opposite: it heats in a minute and loses its heat to the steak in the next. Lodge, the Tennessee foundry that has made the standard American skillet since 1896, tells you to heat the skillet over medium-high for 5 to 6 minutes and to test it with a few drops of water, which should sizzle and vanish on contact; that is the preheat the metal needs to come up evenly, and it is the step home cooks skip.

The pan should be smoking faintly before the oil goes in, and Ramsay's order applies: hot pan, then oil. A tablespoon of grapeseed or canola, swirled to coat, and then the steak, laid away from you. Expect smoke and turn the hood on; a sear at this temperature is a smoky business, and a pan that is not smoking is not hot enough. Sear one steak at a time in a 12-inch skillet. Two steaks side by side drop the pan temperature and trap steam between them, and the crust never comes.

The Sear and the Fat Cap

Leave it alone. Set the steak down and do not move it for 2 to 3 minutes, until the underside has a deep brown, dry crust and releases from the iron without tearing; meat sticks to a hot pan while its proteins bond to the metal and lets go on its own once the crust has formed. Flip it and give the second side the same. What is happening on the surface is the Maillard reaction, the browning that turns the steak's amino acids and sugars into the hundreds of roasted, savory compounds that make a crust taste like more than cooked meat, and it runs faster the hotter the surface, which is the argument for the smoking pan. One correction to steakhouse folklore: searing does not seal in juices. A seared steak loses moisture at the same rate as an unseared one, and the pink center is the result of pulling it at the right temperature, not of sealing anything. Sear for the crust.

Then the fat cap, which is Ramsay's point about confidence. Stand the steak on its fat edge with tongs and hold it against the pan for a minute or two, until the cap is golden and rendering. Beef fat begins to melt around 130°F and does not brown until much hotter, so a cap that only ever touches the pan on its flat sides comes to the plate white and chewy; on its edge, it renders, crisps and drips into the pan, where the rendered fat joins the oil and browns the sides of the steak. A ribeye is the cut this matters most for. Sear the ends the same way if it is bone-in.

The Butter Baste

Butter goes in last, after the crust, and never at the start. Its milk solids scorch black at searing heat, so the sear is done in oil and the butter arrives once the pan is turned down to medium: three tablespoons, two smashed garlic cloves, thyme and rosemary. As the butter foams, its water boils off and the milk solids brown into beurre noisette, the nutty brown butter that is Ramsay's finish on every pan-seared protein. Tilt the skillet so the butter pools, and spoon it over the steak steadily for a minute or two. Basting adds flavor and color and helps cook the top face of a thick steak with the aromatics; it does not, as often claimed, keep the meat moist, since the muscle is already saturated and the surface fat runs off. It is a flavor step, and a good one.

Pull the steak at 125°F for medium-rare, measured with a probe pushed through the side into the thickest part, away from the bone. ThermoWorks gives medium-rare as 130 to 135°F on the plate and advises pulling about 5°F early, because a steak seared over high heat carries over another 3 to 6°F as it rests, more on a thick cut. Medium is a 135°F pull; the USDA minimum for whole cuts of beef is 145°F with a 3-minute rest, and a steak cooked to it is medium-well. Beef proteins begin to set at about 122°F and are firm and gray by 160°F, which is the whole range between a rosy ribeye and a dry one. Ramsay's perfect-steak lesson shows the same sequence in two minutes: hot pan, oil, sear, baste, rest.

The Rest, the Slice, and the Hell's Kitchen Plate

Rest the steak on a warm board for 8 to 10 minutes, loosely tented, and understand what the rest does, because it is not what most people say. Resting does not relax the muscle; heat has already set those proteins for good. What it does is let the juices, which are thin and mobile at cooking temperature, cool slightly and thicken, so they stay in the slices instead of running across the board. The numbers are stark: a steak cut 2 minutes off the heat loses about 6 percent of its weight in juice on the board, and one rested 10 minutes loses about 2. The rest also finishes the carryover, taking a 125°F pull to the mid-130s. Then slice across the grain, in half-inch slices, so each bite cuts the muscle fibers short rather than leaving you to chew them long; cutting across the grain takes roughly a tenth of the biting force of cutting along it.

The Hell's Kitchen Las Vegas menu serves its rib eye with grilled broccolini and peppercorn sauce, and both are easy at home while the steak rests: broccolini blistered in the same skillet in the leftover butter and fat, 3 to 4 minutes over high heat with a squeeze of lemon, and the site's green peppercorn sauce built in the pan after the broccolini comes out. Spoon the resting juices from the board into the sauce; Ramsay's rule is that flavor is never wasted. A Madeira sauce or a spoon of the garlic-thyme butter from the pan are the alternatives, and the potato purée is the side that soaks all of it up.

Cast Iron Ribeye (Gordon Ramsay's Butter-Basted Method)

A 1½-inch ribeye salted 40 minutes ahead and dried, seared 2 to 3 minutes a side in a smoking-hot cast-iron skillet with grapeseed oil, the fat cap rendered on its edge, basted with brown butter, garlic, thyme and rosemary, pulled at 125°F, rested 8 to 10 minutes and sliced across the grain. Serves two with blistered broccolini and peppercorn sauce.

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Prep Time 45 minutes mins

Cook Time 15 minutes mins

Course Main Course

Servings 2 servings

Calories 720 kcal

Ingredients

  

• 1 ribeye steak, bone-in or boneless, 1½ inches thick (16 to 20 oz)
• 1½ tsp kosher salt
• 1 tsp freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tbsp grapeseed or canola oil
• 3 tbsp unsalted butter
• 2 cloves garlic, smashed
• 3 sprigs fresh thyme
• 1 sprig fresh rosemary
• 1 bunch broccolini, trimmed (to serve)
• ½ lemon (to serve)
• flaky sea salt, to finish

Instructions

 

• Salt the steak all over with the kosher salt and set it on a rack over a plate in the refrigerator, uncovered, for at least 40 minutes and up to overnight. Take it out 30 minutes before cooking, pat it dry with paper towel, and season with the pepper.
• Heat a 12-inch cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat for 5 to 6 minutes, until a few drops of water sizzle and vanish on contact and the pan smokes faintly. Turn on the range hood. Add the oil and swirl to coat.
• Lay the steak in the pan away from you and leave it untouched for 2 to 3 minutes, until the underside has a deep brown crust and releases easily. Flip and sear the second side 2 to 3 minutes. Using tongs, stand the steak on its fat edge and hold it 1 to 2 minutes until the cap is golden and rendering; sear the ends the same way if bone-in.
• Reduce the heat to medium. Add the butter, garlic, thyme and rosemary. When the butter foams and smells nutty, tilt the skillet and spoon the butter over the steak steadily for 1 to 2 minutes, until a thermometer through the side into the thickest part reads 125°F for medium-rare (135°F for medium).
• Transfer the steak to a warm board, tent loosely with foil, and rest 8 to 10 minutes. Meanwhile add the broccolini to the skillet over high heat and cook in the remaining butter and fat until blistered and tender-crisp, 3 to 4 minutes; squeeze the lemon over and season.
• Slice the steak across the grain into ½-inch slices, pour any board juices over, finish with flaky salt, and serve with the broccolini and a pan sauce or the garlic-thyme butter from the skillet.

Notes

Salt 40 minutes ahead or right before the pan, never 10 minutes before. Preheat the cast iron a full 5 to 6 minutes. Oil for the sear, butter only for the baste. Pull 5°F under your target; the steak carries over as it rests. Rest 8 to 10 minutes before slicing across the grain.

More steak: Hell's Kitchen New York strip, how to cook filet mignon, and the most tender steaks. The sauce: green peppercorn sauce.

Cast Iron Ribeye FAQs

The questions that come up most: how long to cook a ribeye in cast iron, what temperature the pan should be, whether to oil the pan or the steak, when the butter goes in, what internal temperature to pull at, whether to finish in the oven, how long to rest, and why the kitchen fills with smoke.