Add One Smoky Seasoning And Your Steak Will Taste Restaurant-Worthy

Have you ever ordered a steak at a restaurant and felt like it just had a little something extra? While every place has its secrets, smoked salt is a reliable addition to your spice cabinet that can help you achieve that same next-level taste with minimum effort.

Smoked salt is large-grain salt — such as sea, flake, or kosher — with enough surface area to absorb plenty of flavor. It's smoked with bark-free wood for up to two weeks to create its signature flavor which changes significantly depending on what kind of wood is used. Liberally season the exterior of your raw steak and press lightly to ensure the individual flakes stick on to the meat. For extra credit, air drying your steak in the fridge while it's coated in smoke salt not only gives you a better seared crust, it also gives the salt some time to seep its flavors into the meat.

Steaks like strong, bold seasonings, so pick a salt smoked with hickory, mesquite, walnut, or oak. However, if your recipe is better suited to lighter flavors, cherry and apple woods are readily available at most stores. The strength of a wood's flavor is especially important to keep in mind once you start expanding outside of using smoked salt just for steaks. Once you start exploring those possibilities, you may want to keep different varieties on hand tailored to your favorite recipes.

If you don't have smoked salt on hand, no need to worry. There are plenty of other ways to add smoky flavor to steak through marinades, seasonings, and finishing touches. No matter how you do it, remember that smoky ingredients are potent and are best used in small doses. 

Liquid smoke is safe to cook with, despite sounding like a tool used for special effects in movies, and is the easiest way to give any dish some smoky flavor. Some purists may scoff at the idea of not using a smoker or grill, but even Alton Brown buys liquid smoke constantly, so rest assured it's a high-quality ingredient with some serious potential. One tablespoon mixed with other marinade ingredients is plenty for two ribeyes, so it's an easy item to keep well-stocked in your pantry.

Depending on what you're making, there's a huge number of other smoky ingredients that may be compatible with your recipe. Smoked paprika is ideal for everything from whole steaks to sandwiches but burns quite easily, so use it as a finisher once your meat is cooked. Blended chipotles in adobo are a great substitute for liquid smoke in marinades and mimic much of the flavor of barbacoa. Finally, if you're looking to add smokiness to the dish as a whole rather than the steak, smoked cheeses like gouda or cheddar make fantastic additions to classic steak sandwiches, burrito bowls, or even leftover stir fry when you want to make it a bit heartier.