The Best Spices for Steak: Salt, Pepper and the Rubs Worth Adding

Most cooks keep steak seasoning simple, with salt and black pepper doing most of the work. Britannica notes that Argentines, who eat a great deal of grilled beef, put little besides salt and pepper on their steaks, with chimichurri as the notable exception.¹ Beyond that baseline, published rubs for skirt and flank steak add garlic, cumin, paprika, oregano and dried chiles.²³ This page covers what each does, when it goes on, and how much the named recipes use.

At a glance

Salt: the one seasoning a steak can’t skip

America’s Test Kitchen explains that salt on raw meat draws juices to the surface, dissolves in them to form a brine, and that brine is eventually reabsorbed by the meat.⁴ Its preferred salt for the job is kosher, and it notes that salting does not get in the way of a well-browned crust on steaks, chops or roasts, since it adds no moisture to the outside.⁴ That page gives no timing for steak. Pati Jinich’s skirt steak recipe lets the rubbed steaks sit for a few minutes or up to 2 hours, in the refrigerator if longer than half an hour.²

A common claim says coarse salt is better on steak because its crystals dissolve and absorb more slowly. We found no source that measures this. What ATK does say is that sea salt’s best use is as a finishing salt,¹² so large flakes scattered over sliced steak just before serving add crunch. See cooking with kosher salt, cooking with sea salt, fleur de sel and Maldon salt.

Black pepper: grind it fresh

Black pepper’s characteristic flavor comes mainly from piperine, according to Britannica.⁶ ATK’s advice for the best flavor is to grind your own peppercorns just before you need them.⁵ Coarsely cracked pepper gives the crunch and visible specks of a pepper crust; see cracked vs. ground black pepper.

Ground spices don’t fare well under intense heat,¹³ and a hard sear is intense heat. Some cooks pepper the steak after searing for that reason; that is kitchen practice, not a tested rule. If a crust does turn bitter, see too much pepper.

Garlic: powder in the rub, fresh garlic late

Cutting or crushing garlic activates the compound alliin and the enzyme alliinase, which together create allicin, according to ATK.¹⁴ Fresh minced garlic added to a very hot pan too early can quickly burn and turn acrid and bitter, says ATK.⁷ That makes fresh garlic a poor fit for a rub that goes straight into a smoking-hot skillet, though Bayless does use 4 cloves of chopped garlic in his grilled carne asada rub.³ Crushed cloves added to the butter for basting near the end is a common alternative (kitchen practice).

Garlic powder spreads evenly in a dry rub. ATK found that garlic powder straight from the jar has not developed its full flavor, and recommends hydrating it in a little water first.¹⁴ See garlic powder vs. garlic.

Cumin, paprika and oregano: two Mexican-style rubs

Two named recipes show how much of each spice goes on, and how small the cumin share is:

In both, cumin is a background note, not the lead. Bayless notes that strip steak, rib-eye or chuck steak can stand in for the flank.³ A common claim says cumin helps build a crust on grilled steak; we found no source that tests this. See cumin uses and too much cumin.

Dried chiles: ancho and pasilla

The Chile Pepper Institute describes ancho, a dried poblano, as having sweet, smoky flavors with hints of dried fruit, at 1,000 to 2,000 Scoville heat units, and says it pairs well with meats.⁸ It rates pasilla’s heat as mild.¹⁵ Bayless’s rub uses a third of a cup of ancho powder on a single flank steak.³ Skirt steak is the fajita cut: The Austin Chronicle traces grilled skirt steak, as fajitas or arracheras, to the 1930s in the ranch lands of South and West Texas.¹⁶ Whether chile rubs are traditional on hanger steak, we could not trace. See ancho powder and pasilla powder.

Montreal steak seasoning

Montreal steak spice traces to Schwartz’s smoked meat restaurant in Montreal. CBC News reports that a cook there, Morris “The Shadow” Sherman, started sprinkling the restaurant’s smoked meat spice on his steaks,⁹ and Atlas Obscura tells the same story.¹⁰ What goes into it depends on whom you ask:

The McCormick label does not name coriander or dill; both may sit under “spices,” but the label doesn’t say.¹¹ Its directions call for 1 tablespoon per pound of beef, pork or seafood before grilling or broiling, and one 1/4-teaspoon serving carries 250 mg of sodium.¹¹ Because it is salt-based, don’t salt the steak separately. See coriander and dill seed vs. dill weed.

Chimichurri: seasoning after the grill

Britannica describes chimichurri as a sauce of Argentine origin; in Argentina, fresh parsley, garlic, oregano and chiles form its base.¹ Francis Mallmann’s version in Saveur uses 1 cup chopped parsley, 3/4 cup chopped oregano, 1/3 cup olive oil and 1/4 cup red wine vinegar, and Saveur says it pairs beautifully with steak.¹⁷ See oregano uses and parsley.

Doneness

Federal guidance is to cook beef steaks, roasts and chops to at least 145°F, measured with a food thermometer, with a 3-minute rest.¹⁸ Jinich’s timing of about 4 minutes on one side and 2 to 3 on the other for medium, followed by a 3- to 4-minute rest, is for a skirt steak about 1/2 inch thick;² check thicker cuts with a thermometer.

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