Home » Food & Cooking » Food Debates

Steak: Rare, Medium, or Well Done?

Ranked #25 in Food & Cooking, #288 overall

Steak Doneness: How Do You Like It?

Steak: Rare, Medium, or Well Done?

Some people want their steaks well done: Charred on the outside, thoroughly brown and chewy on the inside.

Others want their steaks done medium or medium rare, with a warm, succulent, juicy pink center.

And some people want their steaks so rare that it practically moos when they stick a fork in it.

Me, I like my steaks done to a tender and flavorful medium rare. However, I've been strongly tempted to try rare...

So what kind of a steak eater are you? Do you prefer a crispy critter, or do you like your steaks pink and juicy?

Contents at a Glance

Levels of Steak Doneness
Flesh-Ripping Carnivore T-shirt
Isn't Eating Undercooked Meat Bad For Yo...
But I Don't Want My Steak to Bleed!
Meat is Murder... Tasty, Tasty Murder!
YOUR TURN!

Degrees of Cooking

Well done: Grayish-brown with no sign of pink, usually slightly charred on the outside. Cooking a good steak to this level of doneness is a challenge. It has to be done slowly on low heat, or else you end up with shoe leather.

Medium well: Mostly gray-brown throughout, but with a hint of pale pink inside. Good for someone who wants an ever-so-slightly juicy steak, but detests any sign of "blood" in their meat.

Medium: A more pronounced band of pink in the middle of the steak. However, there should still be slightly more gray-brown than pink coloration.

Medium rare: Warm and mostly pink to red center. Firm on the outside, soft and juicy on the inside.

Rare: Cool or warm red center. It's nearly like raw meat, but obviously cooked on the outside.

Very rare or blue: Red, cool, and practically raw. It's barely cooked for the true carnivores amongst us.

Raw: I think this one is self-explanatory. Die-hard carnivores can go for this.

Flesh-Ripping Carnivore T-shirt

Flesh-Ripping Carnivore by pearlsofwhimsy
View other Carnivore T-Shirts

Isn't Eating Undercooked Meat Bad For You?

When it comes to things like chicken, pork and ground beef, yes, definitely! But the risk for steak is different. If a cut of steak is going to have any bacteria, it's just about always going to be on the outside. Steak doesn't contain the parasites that plague chickens and pigs. However, the outside should be cooked and handled with clean instruments.

Ground beef, on the other hand, is going to have bacteria spread throughout. You are more likely to get E. Coli by eating undercooked ground beef. Go for a well-done hamburger.

Our biggest worry with chicken meat is salmonella. It's very common for chickens to carry salmonella, which permeates its flesh. The only way to kill the salmonella is to thoroughly cook the chicken meat.

Undercooked pork is potentially even worse than undercooked chicken. There's a risk of developing trichinosis as a result of eating undercooked pork... if the pig was infected the larvae of a trichina worm.

But I Don't Want My Steak to Bleed!

People who love rare steak usually fend off this objection with, "It's not blood, it's MEAT JUICE!" (Or they just grin carnivorously and say that the "blood" is the best part.)

The squeamish people scoff and throw up a wall of skepticism. "Yeah, right. So what exactly IS meat juice, anyway?"

That "meat juice" is mostly water, fat and myoglobin. Did you know the real reason raw meat looks so red is because of myoglobin protein in the muscles? Contrary to popular belief, it's not because of the hemoglobin found in blood.

A quality steak that's been properly drained and cleaned should contain hardly any blood at all, even when it's served rare.

Meat is Murder... Tasty, Tasty Murder!

Meat is Murder...Tasty, Tasty Murder by GoodToGoTees
Get t-shirts from Zazzle

YOUR TURN!

Steak: Pink Center or Crispy Critter?

Fetching blurbs now... please stand by

Give me my tender pink steak!

dave says:

nice filet steak crispy black on the outside, raw red meat on the inside= heaven

Posted February 13, 2012

SirKrispy23 says:

Personally, I feel by cooking the steak slightly, your getting the full natural flavors and eating it the way it was intended, rather than eating a tough hockey puck. But I am a culinary student so there may be some bias!

Posted February 07, 2012

newbizmau says:

Pink Center or preferably Medium Rare Blackened. I like a good season on my steak with juicy insides. Yum

Posted February 05, 2012

krystal D says:

I'm African American and many of my friends think that I'm crazy because I LOVE when steak, lamb etc is cooked medium to medium rare. Guess they feel as though we're not suppose to eat it that way but i could care less...any other way is absurd. How can you eat meat when its chewy and dry? I must be tender and juicy...

Posted February 05, 2012

Humberto says:

i like steak done rare. Salt blood taste. uummhh. it's so good. (Came to Brazil and enjoy the tastes of Churrascaria will give you)

Posted February 05, 2012

Solomon says:

Raw. Read about Ethiopians in Korean war.

Posted January 28, 2012

River_Rose says:

Medium well only!

Posted January 25, 2012

Charl says:

erm, it isn't blood that is coming from the meat at all. It's myoglobin (a protein found in the muscle)
medium rare for me, if it makes you feel better and less "carnivorous" by having your steak crispy and well done, perhaps you should just become a vegetarian and stop kidding to yourself it is somehow more moral.

Posted January 25, 2012

PCCFiberglass says:

The point at which the steak is it's most tender between MED-rare and MED-well usually... NEVER EVER well done!!!

Posted January 24, 2012

tfao says:

raw!

Posted January 23, 2012

duncan73 says:

rare to medium rare. Now I'm hungry!

Posted January 22, 2012

Jwaddle says:

A well done steak is an extreme waste of a perfectly good steak, and you should be ashamed for requesting such a notion.

Posted January 22, 2012

Jeannie says:

A steak that has a dark brown char on the outside with a deep redish brown juice running out. With tender Light red center is the only way to go for me.

Posted January 15, 2012

pattywatty8 says:

I like my steaks medium but in a nice restaurant I often end up with what I would consider rare.

Posted January 14, 2012

Meat Eater says:

We cooked 2 rib eye steaks - rare to medium however there was no red colour. There was juice that came out that looked like water. We haven't encountered this before can someone explain?

Posted January 07, 2012

Eric says:

If I'm at a good steakhouse, rare every time. Although I have been tempted to try blue rare.

Posted January 07, 2012

Tom says:

If my steak's anything over medium- rare I'll send it back. The protein's in the red

Posted January 05, 2012

pyngthyngs says:

I prefer a rare to med-rare center definitely.

Posted January 04, 2012

benny77 says:

Medium Rare for me

Posted January 04, 2012

Mindy C says:

Medium rare for me please! :-D

I'm a dedicated and baptized member of the unified worldwide Christian congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses and MANY people erroneously say that because of our scriptural adherence of not eating blood (Acts 15:28, 29) that we shouldn't have our steaks cooked medium rare. This article shows that they are dead wrong about the red "meat juice" being blood as they are wrong about many other things regarding my people.

Thank you and God bless. :-)

Posted January 02, 2012

Give me my crispy critter!

Paz292 says:

i would say welldone because its more tasty rare is mabye bad for you

Posted February 07, 2012

mihgasper says:

Crispy for me, please!

Posted February 02, 2012

kiyvsugtaumgtsauv loooool says:

well done :D

Posted January 29, 2012

Cutiebp says:

I like my steak medium well, but juicy! :)

Posted January 25, 2012

DJ says:

i can do well done to medium rare nothing else

Posted January 22, 2012

Dell says:

Charred, well done please...

Posted January 19, 2012

Mary says:

Great article:)
http://hook2it.com/blogs/entry/Frugal-Family-Fun

Posted January 18, 2012

AVF281 says:

Well done is the way I like it.

Posted January 13, 2012

Cdub says:

Well done does not equal burnt, and contrary to the hysteria a good chef can make a nice, juicy steak with no pink in the middle.

Posted January 06, 2012

Mahogany says:

Yeah yeah, I know - the rarer the juicier and what not. But I like my steak cooked medium-well. Quite frankly, I find it irritating trying to chew a piece of rare meat

Posted January 04, 2012

GM says:

Crispy critter every time!

Posted December 30, 2011

raj1014 says:

Feel like getting a t-shrit. ;-P

Posted December 29, 2011

luvhammers says:

i prefer mine medium to well done, the meat juice as you say is off putting as it looks too much like blood.

Posted December 21, 2011

StrongMay says:

I like it medium-well to well-done. If it bleeds it is back on the burner. But that doesn't mean it isn't juicey.
In Israel, the concept 'well done' is not understood when it comes to meat. Well done is bloody. So we had to get it through to the chefs that we want it BURNT. Naturally, they were in shock. Especially since we sent the meat back again and again until it was done.
And no, It is NOT hard to well-done steak.

Posted December 04, 2011