Disclaimer: This post is part of Heinen’s #HeinensGrill campaign. I was given a gift card in exchange for a post about what we like to grill. As always, my thoughts are 100% my own.

When we moved into our house about 7 years ago my parents offered to buy us a grill. After several years of grilling with gas we opted for a charcoal Weber kettle grill and we haven’t looked back. We use it nearly every weekend in the summer. When you own a house without air conditioning, everything gets cooked on the grill so the house doesn’t heat up. It’s either that or eat cereal every night (which I’m sure the kids wouldn’t mind). Mark is the official griller in the the family, although I do sometimes take a turn by the coals. We cook all sorts of meats, pizzas, fish, veggies, fruit – you name it, we’ve likely grilled it.

On Sunday I had done my usual weekend Heinen’s run and picked up some nice steaks. It’s one thing that I can count on at least 3 of us enjoying (the only meat Madman will eat are hot dogs and ham). But Matilda loves steak so much that I now have to get her her own cut because she will eat the whole thing. So I got 2 rib-eyes and a top loin (mostly because I couldn’t decide between the two cuts and I wanted to do a side-by-side taste test). I used my favorite method to prep the meat – heavy salting with a few added flavors. I read about this years ago and it really does make a big difference in meats – especially lesser cuts. I had pretty good steaks but salt only improves the flavor and tenderness.

 Steaks marinating in salt – rosemary and smashed garlic came to the party, too.

Basically the method is this:

• Season steaks liberally with kosher salt – use more than you think you need. You want the steaks to be pretty well coated with salt. Use 2 tsp+ per side. Add aromatics if you want.
• Let the steaks sit at room temperature for 1 hour per thickness of steak (so a 1.5 inch steak will sit out for 90 minutes).
• Rinse, rinse, rinse. Rinse the steak really well under running water to get rid of all the salt.
• Dry, dry, dry. Use clean paper towels to pat the steak very very dry so that zero moisture is left on the steak.
• Grill!

We had an outing planned for the afternoon so I couldn’t do this to the letter, but I’ve found that you can still do it even if you won’t be around right before cooking. Just adjust your amount of salt – the more salt the quicker this works, less salt means you have more time. Since I figured we’d be gone about 4 hours before the steaks hit the grill, I cut back to about 1 tsp of salt per side, then put the steaks in the refrigerator. It worked fine. (edited to add: I googled around to see if I could find where I originally read about this method. I couldn’t but this post does a good job at explaining why this works).

Mark, doing his thing on the Weber

Once we got home the first thing I did was pull the meat out of the refrigerator to start warming up to room temp. While Mark got the coals started I rinsed and dried the beef. Then it had about 30 minutes to get to room temp before the grill was ready. I used that time to prep a quick caprese salad and boil some read potatoes for sides.

Local tomatoes, fresh basil from our plant = YUM!

The result? A perfect, easy Sunday dinner (with enough for leftovers for Monday lunches). I am a steak purist and will totally cringe when I see someone put steak sauce or even herbed butter on their steak… and please don’t ever cover my steak with mushrooms and onions. I will not be happy. I like my beef cooked medium rare and served plain. This method gives you a perfectly salted, tender steak that you can practically cut with a butter knife.

 Taste test result – I was surprised liked the top sirloin better.
If I had purchased thicker-cut rib eyes I think it would have been a tie.

What is your favorite thing to grill?

Giveaway for readers: If you live near a Heinen’s they have offered a tote full of grilling supplies as a giveaway to one of my readers. You need to be local to a store as you will pick up your prize at your local Heinen’s. All you need to do is leave a comment with your favorite thing to grill OR tweet your favorite thing to grill, just make sure you use #HeinensGrill and tag me (@kakaty) in your tweet. Example: “Hey @kakaty I love salmon on the grill! #HeinensGrill”.

Use only one entry method, one entry per person.

Winner will be picked after 8 PM on Sunday 8/10.