Simplest recipe I’ve found for how to cook grilled steak is to cook steak directly on charcoal. Watch our how to video and get the recipe below.
How to cook grilled steak directly on charcoal
Key here is the steak you choose. I like the strip steak. Here they call them NY strip steaks, and the work best with the bone-in. I happen to get these on sale, which was a bonus. You will probably have to ask the butcher to cut you thick steaks. I rarely see thick steaks pre-packaged. These are 1 1/2″ thick. I think thin steaks will not work well with this. You can cook thicker steaks too. The NY Times suggests charring on both sides and then cooking them on a grill if you prefer.
Ideally, you will coat the steaks in the dry rub and leave it on overnight or as long as you can. I did these the same day and they were fine, but planning ahead helps. As you know, I am not great at planning…
Chunk Charcoal, aka hardwood charcoal is the only way to cook grilled steak, you don’t want to use charcoal briquettes. Not sure what briquettes have in them, but chunk charcoal is just wood. You will want two chimneys of wood charcoal. Be careful with the chimneys, I almost melted one of them, the charcoal got so hot.
I found a baking pan worked much better than putting the coals in the bottom of a grill. Made it much easier to work the rig and check the temperature of the steak. When laying the steaks on the coals, plan ahead so you can flip the steak over onto fresh coals. This isn’t a must do thing, but I found it helpful. I was able to cook two strip steaks at a time in a 9×13 pan.
How do you cook grilled steak? Let me know in the comments below.
- 2 TBSP of Pimenton Picante, a spanish smoked paprika
- 2 TBSP Ground Cumin
- 2 TBSP kosher salt
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1/4 cup ground coffee – i used a medium roast set for drip coffee grind, use what you got
- Mix all the ingredients together in a bowl, break up the brown sugar with a fork or your hands.
- Put the steak on a flat dish and dust the both sides of the steak with the dry rub, patting it onto the steak with a spoon or flat metal spatula, use what you got.
- Turn the steak onto its sides and roll it to get the dry rub onto the edges of the steak.
- Cover with plastic wrap and put in the fridge overnight.
- Let the steak warm up before putting on grill.
- Its ok if you don’t do the overnight rub, you can put it on shortly before you grill the steaks also.
- This dry rub will coat about 3 steaks.