Easy Reverse Seared Tomahawk Steak

The best recipes are often the simplest. Indeed, tried and true, hard to screw up, easy to perfect are the best recipe. As it should be. The tomahawk is expensive enough, who needs more pressure than that? It really isn’t that hard to reverse sear a tomahawk but I understand if you want to over research this a bit to make sure you get it right. Nevertheless, this recipe will be true to the title – Easy Reverse Seared Tomahawk Steak

This is not our first foray into reverse searing or cooking a tomahawk or reverse searing a tomahawk. Tricked you, those are pork tomahawks! We’ve done the upside down cast iron pan trick and the cast iron pan the regular way. Feel free to incorporate any of those here, but since they complicate things, I thought I would leave them out. Speaking of keeping it simple, let’s sum it up:

How to Reverse Sear a Tomahawk Steak

1. Season the tomahawk

2. Smoke till the steak is 10F-20F short of the desired doneness

3. Stoke up a grill to get a cooking surface north of 400F (500F+ is better)

4. Sear on both sides to form a beautiful and tasty flavor crust

5. Rest the steak for a few minutes

6. Snarf

7. Gnaw – don’t forget that tasty meat next to the bone. Get your hands (and face) dirty polishing that off which is the best part

Easy Reverse Seared Tomahawk Steak Ingredients:

• 1 Tomahawk steak
• Your favorite BBQ seasoning (preferably a beef rub)
• Salt (optional)

That’s it. Told you it was easy.

Cooking on a Santa Maria Style Grill

The hardest part of this recipe is that I will be smoking on my Santa Maria style grill. Although that just requires practice and practice is fun! The grill is an open air cooker that has a grill grate that raises and lowers to adjust temperature rather than adjusting with vents. With the Hooray Grill, it takes a little bit to figure out what level the grill grates need to be in order to get some smoke without cooking the steak too much. Thus, if the grill grates are too close to the coals, the steak will be done before we can sear. Conversely, if it is too far from the coals, the steak won’t come up to temp.

With this in mind, it doesn’t take much practice to get this down and I highly recommend the Hooray. Because it is soooo well over engineered it stands heads and shoulders above grills that need to be replaced every couple of years. Therefore, your biggest decision in terms of the longevity of the Hooray is which child to give it to or should you just be buried in it!?

How to Reverse Sear Tomahawk Rib Eyes

In a standard charcoal grill, set up for two zone or indirect grilling. First, bank the charcoal to one side. Second, toss in a couple chunks of smoke wood on the coals.  Third, place the steak on the other side of the grill. Finally, close the lid and that grill is a smoker. Target temp inside the chamber is between 225F-275F.

In a gas grill, turn on one burner on one end of the grill and place a chunk of wood as close to the burner as possible. You might need to start the smoking process with a plumbers torch. Set the steak on the far side from the lit burner. Target temp in the chamber again is 225F-275F.

On a Santa Maria grill, initially raise the grill grates (and the steaks) up above the coals enough that the rib eyes get lots of smoke and some heat to get them up to 10F-20F short of the desired temperature. Subsequently, when the steaks get to within 10F-20F of your desired doneness, sear them over a wicked hot fire to get that flavor crust. After this, the steak will come up to the desired temp.

Speaking of that plumbers torch, it’s very handy and an easy way to start a grill and is on my list of the top 10 ways to light a charcoal grill without lighter fluid. 

Here are our steaks waiting on some seasoning:

Thick enough?

Before we go any further, let’s answer a question:

Should I Reverse Sear my Tomahawk?

You should absolutely reverse sear a tomahawk. Reverse searing imparts the smoke flavor into the beef, cooks evenly so we have coast to coast uniform color on the inside (no grey bands around the outside) AND it has that wonderful flavor crust at the end. Conversely, searing first and them smoking results in grey, dry bands around the outside of the cross section of the steak and not much smoke flavor penetrates after it has been seared.

The only time I don’t recommend reverse searing is if the steak is not very thick. And that’s because I like my steaks rare, so once I sear a thin steak on both sides it is done enough for my taste. And since a tomahawk has that thick bone attached, it is usually close to 2 inches thick or thicker therefore it’s an excellent choice for the reverse sear method

Let’s get to the specifics of this recipe.

Easy Reverse Seared Tomahawk Steak Instructions

First, season the steak with your favorite beef/steak rub on both sides:

And with how thick these steaks are, make sure to roll the side of the steak in the seasoning that misses the meat:

If your favorite beef seasoning doesn’t have a lot of salt, feel free to salt the tomahawks too.

This, if it has enough salt, then skip the extra salt.

Next, a charcoal chimney full of lit coals is dumped into the Hooray:

Then, a couple chunks of oak are added to the coals for the smoke.

If you don’t have access to oak and want to know what smoke wood you have access to pairs well with steak, check this list. 

You can see the chunks of smoke wood in the coals and for some reason Dad is having the time of his life!

Next, place the tomahawk steaks on the grill grates and adjust the height of the grates depending on the heat of the fire:

With this cooker being open air, take into account the wind.

Make sure the wind isn’t blowing the smoke away from the bone in steaks.

Furthermore, adjust the position of the steaks to be downwind of the smoke. 

In a standard charcoal or gas grill, the steak doesn’t need to be flipped or moved while they smoke.

Although, on a Santa Maria style cooker, the tomahawks will need to be flipped over every 20-30 minutes or so:

I know it looks like my steak is seared in that pic above.

The seasoning I used (Prime IV Steak Seasoning) has a lot of black garlic.

Thus, the seasoning darkens quickly but my steaks are still fairly raw. 

Time to Sear

Finally, once my steaks hit about 100F-110F I can lower the grill grates to right above the raging hot coals and get that flavor crust.

Hence, searing will take the steaks the rest of the way to my desired doneness of 120F-125F:

With as close as I can get to that bed of coals, I don’t get the diamond grill marks you are used to seeing.

However, I get coast to coast browning which is better than those thin lines surrounded by grey. 

Target internal temp is 120F-125F:

Last but not least, pull the steaks off the grill and let them rest for a few minutes.

Don’t stress this step.

Resting Steak May Just Be a Myth

I know it’s considered blasphemy to not rest a steak or not rest it long enough, but the king of food science not named Alton Brown, Meathead Goldwin begs to differ. 

Also, if you want to cook your steak more or less, by all means, do what you like.

This chart might help you get there:

Steak Temps

• Rare Steak Temp: 120F-125F
• Medium Rare Steak Temp: 130F-135F
• Medium Steak Temp: 140F-145F
• Med. Well Steak Temp: 150F-155F
• Well Done Steak Temp: 160F or more, but seriously, just order the chicken

When slicing these, carve steak from the bone but leave some meat attached to that giant rib because that meat is the best. Additionally, gnawing on the bone is the best part:

So how did we do?

This is the outer edge which should be the most done, but with reverse searing, it’s nearly the same as the middle:

Time for my favorite part:

Aaaaannnndddd this is why I’m fat!

I know we went simple, but I added some chimichurri to one of these steaks:

If you are looking for a scratch chimichurri recipe, you can find one here, or get this chimi from friend Al Frugoni which is incredible and will save you a ton of time. 

Easy Reverse Seared Tomahawk Steak Summary

Lovely smoke flavor? Check

Coast to coast even cooking? Check

Coast to coast flavor crust? Check

Heaven on a plate? CHECK!!!!

If you have any questions, feel free to shoot me an email. Here’s my email address.

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Recipe Card:

Print Recipe

Easy Reverse Seared Tomahawk Steak

Easy Reverse Seared Tomahawk Steak: Season the steak, smoke it, stoke up the fire, sear the steak, rest and scarf and don't forget to gnaw on that bone.

Prep Time5 minutes mins

Cook Time1 hour hr

Course: Entree, Main Course, Steak

Cuisine: American, American Fare, Grilling, North American, Steak, Traditional American

Keyword: Black Garlic, Bone In Ribeye, Chimichurri Steak, Easy, Grill Steak, Grilled Steak, Medium Rare Steak Temp, Medium Steak Temp, Medium Well Steak Temp, Rare Steak, Rare Steak Temp, Recipe, reverse sear, reverse seared, Reverse Seared Steak, Rib Eye Steak, Ribeye, Ribeye Steak, Santa Maria Grill, Santa Maria Style Grill, Steak, Steak Temps, Tomahawk, Tomahawk Rib Eye, Tomahawk Ribeye, Tomahawk Steak, Well Done Steak Temp

Servings: 4 People

Ingredients

• 1 Tomahawk steak
• Your favorite BBQ Rub Beef
• Salt to taste Optional

Instructions

• Prepare the grill for two zone or indirect grilling with heat and smoke wood on one side and the steak on the other
• Target temperature inside the grill is between 225F-275F
• While the grill is coming up to temp, season the steak with the beef seasoning and salt to taste (optional)
• Make sure to season the outer edge too
• Place the steak as far from the heat source as possible and close the lid or adjust the grill grate height on a Santa Maria grill to smoke the steaks but not cook them too much
• In a standard grill, do not flip or move the steak but on a Santa Maria grill, flip the steak about 30 minutes in
• Once the steak hits 10F-20F below the desired doneness, stoke up the fire to north of 400F (500F+ is even better)
• Sear the steak on each side.
• Remove the tomahawk from the grill and allow to rest and serve

Video

Scott Thomas

Scott Thomas, the Original Grillin’ Fool, was sent off to college with a suitcase and a grill where he overcooked, undercooked and burned every piece of meat he could find. After thousands of failures, and quite a few successes, nearly two decades later he started a website to show step by step, picture by picture, foolproof instructions on how to make great things out of doors so that others don’t have to repeat the mistakes he’s made on the grill.

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BBQ Grilling

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This article was initially published on: February 13, 2023