Here's everything worth knowing about steak seasoning and how to pick it, what it is, how to store it, and what to use instead, plus 9 recipes to cook tonight.

What is steak seasoning?

Steak seasoning is a coarse, savory rub built to do one job well: put a flavorful crust on a piece of beef.

The benchmark style is Montreal steak seasoning, a blend of cracked black pepper, coarse salt, garlic, dried onion, and crushed coriander, often with a little dill and red pepper flake.

The texture is the point. Those big, gritty grains cling to a wet steak and toast on the grill into a peppery, garlicky bark you can actually feel between your teeth.

Finer seasoned salts dissolve and disappear; steak seasoning stays put.

It tastes sharp and peppery up front, savory underneath, with just enough salt to season the meat through.

How to Use Steak Seasoning

Pat the steak dry, then press the seasoning on generously with your hands so the coarse grains stick. About ½ to 1 teaspoon per side of a normal steak is a good starting point.

Let it sit ten to fifteen minutes before cooking so the salt starts to draw out and reabsorb moisture, which helps the crust form.

It is built for high, dry heat. A hot grill or a screaming cast-iron pan lets the pepper and garlic toast instead of steam. Sear hard, then flip once and rest the meat before slicing.

Steak is only the start. The same coarse blend is excellent on burgers, where it seasons all the way through; both Garlic Curry Burgers and Spicy Cheddar Stuffed Ultimate Burgers lean on that.

It is just as good on a rack of Grilled Country Ribs From George Fassett or on Grilled Turkey Legs.

Do not overlook vegetables. A spoonful wakes up roasted potatoes, and a batch of Red Garlic Mashed Potatoes uses it to season the whole pot.

Pairing and Common Mistakes

Because it is already pepper-and-garlic forward, steak seasoning pairs best with simple partners that let the beef lead. Think butter, a squeeze of lemon, a little fresh thyme, and a sharp blue cheese or mushrooms on the side. It works under a pat of compound butter melting over the rest.

The most common mistake is salting twice. Most blends are quite salty, so if you also salt the steak separately you will overshoot. Season with the blend and stop.

The second mistake is using it on delicate foods at the table. The coarse grains never dissolve, so sprinkled raw on fish or eggs they read as gritty, harsh crunches of pepper and salt. Save it for things that get seared or roasted long enough to toast the spices.

Substitutes

Out of steak seasoning? The fastest fix is to build it. Combine 2 parts coarse salt with 2 parts coarsely cracked black pepper and 1 part each granulated garlic and dried minced onion, plus a pinch of crushed coriander. That hits the Montreal profile closely.

A simpler swap is just coarse salt and plenty of cracked pepper, which is most of what a steak actually needs. Add granulated garlic if you have it.

In a pinch, a coarse all-purpose grill seasoning or a barbecue rub works. Barbecue rubs usually carry sugar and paprika that sweeten and darken the crust faster, so watch for scorching. Seasoned salt also stands in, but it is fine-ground and skews salty, so use less and expect no crunch.

Buying and Storing It

Steak seasoning lives in the spice aisle, usually in a tall grinder jar or a shaker. Look for one where pepper and garlic top the ingredient list rather than salt. Grinder-top jars let you crack the spices fresh, which keeps the pepper punchier.

Coarse blends actually hold their flavor a little longer than fine powders because there is less surface area exposed to air, but they still fade. Plan on about a year of good flavor from a sealed jar kept cool and dark.

Store it like any spice, tightly closed and away from the heat of the stove.

If you buy whole-spice grinder jars, only grind what you need; cracked pepper and coriander lose their aroma within minutes, which is exactly why fresh-cracked tastes so much better on the steak.

Quick facts

In Chinese

调味牛排

British (UK) term

Steak seasoning

en français

le steak assaisonnement

en español

filete condimento

Recipes using steak seasoning

There are 9 recipes that contain this ingredient.

All 9 recipes