A beautifully browned crust, tender, flavour-packed middle, and ready in just minutes – steak is hard to beat.
Whether you’re cooking a simple pan-fried steak or barbecuing a special cut for friends, our expert steak guides are full of prepping tips, cooking times, recipes and how-to-videos to make your life easier.
How to cook steak
Every steak cut has a unqiue taste and texture. They benefit from slightly different cooking times and techniques. In general however, for a 2cm-thick quality steak like sirloin, rump, ribeye or fillet, the easiest method is to pan-fry or griddle over a high heat.
Just before cooking, pat the steak dry with kitchen paper. Season with salt and pepper, and rub about a tablespoon of oil, over both sides. Heat a heavy-based frying or griddle pan until smoking hot, then add the steak. Cook it for the times listed below; you should have a great caramelised crust on each side. Make sure to rest on a board or warm plate for about 5 minutes for maximum juiciness. Need more inspiration?
Dig into all our steak recipes
How long to cook steak
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Rare
4 to 6 minutes per side
Medium-rare
5 to 7 minutes per side
Medium
6 to 8 minutes per side
Well-done
8 to 10 minutes per side
Rump steak is a lean cut with an excellent strong, beefy flavour. Great cooked fast on the barbecue, then sliced thinly to serve.
Ribeye, also known as côte de boeuf, is tender and rich, with a good marbling of fat (including a sizeable central seam)
The tenderest cut, with a melt-in-the-mouth texture. It is leaner and often thicker cut than other steaks.
Crowdpleasing sirloin has a strong, bold flavour that really suits punchy sauces. It doesn’t have much fat marbling, so cook carefully to keep it juicy.
Tomahawk is essentially a ribeye with the long bone left in. Large and impressive, it makes a great barbecue centrepiece for a crowd.
Sizzling Saturday
You can buy pre-packed steaks in store, or visit the meat counter in your local Waitrose for expert advice from our butchers. If you’re a myWaitrose member, you’ll get 20% off selected meat from the counter in store every Saturday.
Best of British beef
All our beef is sourced with care from British farms we know and trust – some of which we've worked with for over 30 years. Waitrose has won more Compassion in World Farming awards than any other supermarket. Find out more about our animal welfare standards.