I have a chip on my shoulder when it comes to cooking meat. In all my time studying, what I’ve seen is that in a lot of kitchens, both restaurant and home cooks have become content with misinformation that gets them “close enough” to good meat, but doesn’t deliver the results they could have if they’ll just tweak their technique a little bit.

Honestly, I understand why some myths are so pervasive, and I don’t hold it against the average home cook. Most people cook as more of a chore, and they don’t really care about improving their craft. I have nothing against this.

But we’re the Cook’n family. We cook because we love it. We hold ourselves to a higher standard. So let’s jump up and dispel some of the misinformation that has plagued our kitchens for far too long.

Myth #1: Tempering Meat

This is a good myth to squash because it affects your food safety. We’ve all heard that we need to temper our meat before cooking it by pulling it out of the fridge and letting it get up to room temperature before throwing it on the heat.

This seems to make sense because you want the meat to cook evenly. If it’s cold in the middle, then it’ll be underdone on the inside or overcooked on the outside, right?

This is wrong for two reasons. First, if you really want to let your chuck roast reach room temperature, you’ll have to have it sitting out for about ten hours before it truly reaches room temperature. Meat has a lot of water content, and water changes its temperature very slowly. Do you really want to leave your meat on the table for ten hours? I guarantee the people who say you need to temper your meat aren’t doing that, so they’re just selling false science.

Regardless, a second reason tempering your meat is pointless is because it is actually self defeating in most cases. If you’re cooking a huge piece of meat slowly in your smoker or oven, it’ll take several hours to cook anyway. If you’re searing a steak with the famous reverse sear method, this will take some time as well. If you’re blasting a thin slice of steak on high heat, you actually want it to be cold in the middle so it doesn’t overcook. The only time when tempering can be slightly useful is if you’re cooking a thick cut of steak to medium rare.

Myth #2: Seasonings and Rubs

This myth breaks down into two sections: salt, and all your other seasonings. I’ll address these separately.

Salt: The most common misunderstanding with salt is it doesn’t matter when you apply it. As long as your meat is salted, there’s nothing to worry about. This is woefully false for several reasons. First, salt is one of the only molecules that is small enough that it can make its way into the protein bundles of your meat. Thus, when you salt meat properly, the whole meat gets seasoned. This has huge benefits in texture, flavor, mouthfeel, color, and health. You should salt your meat a minimum of 45 minutes before you start cooking. I make a point of salting most of my meat as soon as I get home from the store.

The big exception to this is fish. Because it has such delicate flesh, fish benefits more from being salted just prior to cooking. I’ll often throw it on the heat and then salt it while it sits on the stove. But every other cut of meat? You’ll find it salted in my fridge the day before I cook it.

This is actually the reason you don’t find salt on the table in Italy and in many fancy restaurants. If you need to apply salt at the table, it means the chef has failed at their job.

Other Seasonings: The other seasoning myth goes the opposite direction. Some people think when you apply a rub to your meat, you should put it on the day before to give all those flavors plenty of time to soak into the meat. This actually isn’t true, and generally, you’ll be better off rubbing the seasoning onto the meat just before cooking it.

Like I discussed above, salt is one of the few molecules small enough to actually penetrate meat and make its way into the fibers. But all those other flavor molecules aren’t so lucky. All that flavor will just stay on the surface of the meat—it doesn’t matter how long you let them marinate. In fact, if you are wet brining your meat overnight, the only reason you throw all your seasonings in then instead of later is because it's convenient, not because it makes better flavor.

Why does this matter? Two reasons: I don’t like to make cooking more complicated than it has to be, and worrying about when to rub down my meat gets overcomplicated. But more importantly, if you apply your rub too early, it’ll get soggy as the salt leaches moisture from the meat. This will hurt your meat’s ability to caramelize while it cooks, resulting in a subpar result.

Myth #3: How to Tell When the Meat is Done

There are so many myths about proper food cooking times that it drives me crazy. This is certainly one of my biggest pet peeves because the solution is so simple!

Let me rapid fire some “doneness” myths:

• You can’t tell by the color. This changes from cut to cut, as well as from animal to animal. Judging meat by its color is only ever a rough estimate.
• You can’t tell by poking the meat (and no, you can’t tell by poking the fleshy part of your hand and pretending it’s a medium-rare steak). This is, again, a rough estimate at best that usually ends in undercooked steak and overcooked chicken. These last two myths are the favored faults of barbeque heroes and grill dads.
• No kitchen timer will accurately predict when your meat will be done. This is probably the most pervasive myth among cooks who favor the stove and oven. “Ribeye takes eight minutes per side, chicken breast takes six minutes per side, and pork chop takes ten minutes per side.” Not true! Just like the other two myths, you’ll only be estimating. Your worst case scenario is accidentally undercooking food, but your more likely scenario (as I’ve seen in dozens of kitchens) is that you’re constantly overcooking your meat. Some families experience this so often that they’ve come to believe that overcooked meat is properly cooked meat. Poor family!

What’s the solution? Invest in a thermometer. They cost about $15, and they will revolutionize your kitchen. Learn what temperature meats should be cooked to before they’re done. Learn to properly use a thermometer, and you’ll never go wrong.

If you never take any other advice from me, at least heed these words: get yourself a thermometer.

Myth #4: Resting Your Meat

This is only mostly a myth, but it comes down to the way you think about your meat.

The common-sense argument goes that right after cooking meat, the juices on the inside are still highly active, so if you cut immediately into the meat, all the juices will come spilling out onto the plate. But we want our juices in the meat!

This is almost always a myth for a few reasons. First, water content isn’t the only factor that makes meat juicy. The main things that make meat juicy are gelatinized connective tissue and your own saliva because that steak is so mouth wateringly delicious. But guess what? If you rest your meat, it’s going to cool down, that connective tissue is going to slightly reharden, and the drool factor will go way down. Sure, you’ve saved some water content, but at what cost?

Second, are you telling me that when you cut into a steak or a pork chop, you don’t immediately smear it around your plate to mop up juices, gravy, butter, or lemon juice? Nobody just cuts and bites.

Of course there are a few times when you probably should rest your meat. The main scenario that comes to mind is when you’ve cooked a large piece of meat that will be cut up and shared among many partygoers. However, even in this case it’s often a better idea to cut right in, and then take all those spilled drippings and make an incredible, herby pan sauce to drizzle over the fresh meat.

Myth #5: Choosing the Right Wood

This myth is only for people who love to barbeque. If that’s you, listen closely:

Hickory wood is perfect for bacon, while oak and chestnut are great for chicken. Mesquite wood is great for beef. Apple wood is a unique, fun wood that puts a floral spin on your meat, and is perfect on pork.

Except… that’s not at all true.

There’s a lot that goes into making good barbeque, and fretting over which wood you use should be among the last of your worries.

To make things simple, I’ll divide barbeque woods into two categories. Category One: Mesquite. Category Two: Literally everything else. Mesquite is indeed a noticeably harsher and more pungent wood. Everything else is so similar that they’re virtually indistinguishable. In fact, a much more reliable meter for getting different tasting wood isn’t so much the species of tree you’re burning, but the region that the tree comes from.

If you’ve wondered which wood you should use with your barbeque, I suggest you just pick one at random—perhaps just go with whatever is cheapest—and stick with it until you’ve gone through a few bags.

Myth #6: The Fat Cap

Ah, yes, the ultimate myth of Sunday slow cookers and offset smokers alike. Don’t cut off that fat cap! You want to cook it sitting on top of your meat so that it renders and makes its way into the rest of your meat. This will make it extra juicy by the end of the cooking time.

Not. True.

Fat molecules are way too large to make their way into the fine bundles of protein fibers that make up your meat. That fat cap won’t render into the meat; it’ll just render, drip down the sides of the meat, and either start a fire in your barbeque or make a greasy puddle at the bottom of your slow cooker. While some fat can be great for getting a good scorch on the grill or making a delicious gravy on the stove, too much fat will just turn out gross and cumbersome.

If you have a fat cap, cut it off, save it, and use it to make tallow or lard.

One small exception to this is if you’re barbecuing your meat, it can be a good idea to leave a very thin layer of that fat cap on the bottom of the meat closest to your heat source. This will protect the meat itself from burning during extended cooking hours.

Go Forth and Eat Meat

I hope this article has been helpful. If you don’t already own a good thermometer, I hope I’ve convinced you to go get one!

Have I missed any meat myths? Or do you think I’m misinformed in any of these? If so, debate me in the comments!

    Matthew Christensen
    Weekly Newsletter Contributor since 2023
    Email the author! matthew@dvo.com