How to Cook a Tomahawk Steak

We season a tomahawk steak with salt, pepper, garlic seasoning (SPG) and then reverse sear it on a gas grill. Yes, on a gas grill. Listen, if I can reverse sear on a gas grill then you can reverse sear a charcoal or pellet grill or even over live fire. I’ll also explain how to cook a tomahawk steak on those grilling platforms as well as why we reverse sear steak in the first place.

Tomahawks are not cheap. You paid ribeye prices for a large bone nobody eats. But the presentation is absolutely amazing and gnawing the meat off the bone is always fun and primal at the same time. I get it. You don’t want to mess it up AND/OR you want to take it to the next level and make the night beyond memorable. We can help with both, indeed.

• Here’s a black garlic tomahawk steak.
• How to cook a tomahawk steak IN a cast iron pan. 
• How to cook a tomahawk steak ON a cast iron pan (there’s a difference).
• How to cook a Tomahawk on a Flat Top Griddle

Ingredients for How to Cook a Tomahawk Steak

• 1 fat tomahawk steak
• SPG seasoning, substitute your favorite beef seasoning

Needed Equipment for a Gas Grill

• Smoker box
• Wood chips
• Blowtorch (optional)

That’s it. Two ingredients. 

This is a 26 ounce ribeye which is a couple inches thick. So seasoning on the top and the bottom is not enough.

Make sure you lay down a line of seasoning and then roll the edge in it:

Cowboy Butter (Optional)

Please note that I kicked up this bone in ribeye with some compound butter aka cowboy butter. Compound butter is just butter kicked up with extra flavors. In this case, we used fresh garlic, rosemary, and thyme. The full ingredients and the process are listed in this recipe: Garlic and Herb Compound Butter. As I write this, the remainder of the compound butter was put into some parchment paper and rolled up like a big tootsie roll and is in my fridge where it will be used for weeks or months until every last pat has been melted over steaks or crusty bread. 

How to Cook a Tomahawk Steak

I’m going to show how to do this on a gas grill and then I will demonstrate on the other fuel platforms. 

On all the platforms we will be using the reverse sear method which means bringing up the temperature of the steak slowly by smoking the beef before finishing it off with a sear at the end to get an amazing flavor crust. Also, we will be using the reverse sear method on all the platforms.

**Stay tuned for a post dedicated to exactly what the reverse sear method is all about. I’ll go deep into why we use this method and when not to use it**

To reverse sear on a gas grill, we need to have indirect or two zone grilling set up. Thus a hot side for the smoke and cooler side for the meat. The smoker box goes over the side with the direct heat and then the steak(s) go on the side with no direct heat. 

So crank on the burner on one side of the grill to between a quarter and halfway and close the lid. Let the temp normalize. We want it to be close to 250F with a max of 300F. Give it about 15 minutes to warm up and the temp to level off. If it’s too high, lower the heat on the one burner that is on until you get the temp we want. 

For this cook, I used the MHP Hybrid gas grill with the built-in, infrared sear station. The sear station is absolutely brilliant for reverse searing steaks. I highly recommend it. This hybrid cooker has two traditional burners on one side and the sear station on the other. The traditional burners for more traditional cooking. The sear station is for creating absolutely amazing flavor crust on steaks like this one. 

But to start this session, we begin with the seasoned steak over that sear station but we are leaving the sear station off.

Then, on the other side, we put the smoker box filled with pecan chips:

Smoker Box Hacks

Smoker boxes can be a bit temperamental. They take a while to get going and it is easy to make the grill hotter than we want to get the smoke box smoking. Here’s a trick to get the smoke rolling. First hack, DO NOT soak the chips. The moisture has to evaporate before the wood will smoke. Thus, soaking the chips will extend start up time many fold. Second hack, remove the lid from the smoker box and hit the chips with a blow torch for about 5 seconds. When the wood smolders, put the lid box on and close the lid to the grill. Instant smoker!

That’s the hard part. We just made a gas grill, or in this case, a gas/infrared hybrid, into a smoker. And it wasn’t all that hard. 

Now we wait for the steak to come up to about 10-15 degrees short of the desired doneness which can take anywhere from 20-40 minutes depending on the thickness of the steak and temp of the grill.

I was going for medium rare on this one so I pulled it between 120F and 125F. 

What’s your desired doneness for a steak? This handy guide will help:

• 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

While the steak is smoking, feel free to make some compound butter. We made this garlic and herb cowboy butter for both these steaks and some grilled corn we served on the side. The butter was applied to both (as you will see below) at the end. 

Here’s that tomahawk ready to for the sear.

Notice the smoke coming from the smoker box on the right:

Remove the steak from the grill and very carefully remove the smoker box as it will be screaming hot. Heat resistant gloves or tongs are required.

Turn that right burner off and then crank up the sear station which is underneath the steak in the pic above. You can see the lattice wirework through the grill grates which are indicative of an infrared sear station. 

Here is that sear station lit:

That’s on a sunny day. At night, that sear station is like a neon sign. 

Do not leave the steak over the sear station as it warms up. 

The steak will cook rapidly before the it browns and it will go well above your target temp before we get that tasty flavor crust on the outside. Let the sear station come up to temp and then put the steak back over the direct heat. 

That sear station can easily go north of 800F. I had it fairly tame around 700F when I seared this ribeye. 

Nothing to this, let that burner get ripping hot, then place the meat right over the burner:

Two Considerations While Searing a Tomahawk

There are only two things you have to worry. The first is keeping that bone off the direct heat. With the direct heat, it will blacken and that black char will be all over your fingers and face when you try to gnaw the last of the meat off the bone. Because gnawing that meat off the bone is quite mandatory (and can be seen in action below the recipe card). 

Second, don’t leave the steak over that burner for too long. Beautiful char can become a burnt steak pretty quickly, particularly at these temps. As long as you don’t let it burn it will indeed be beautiful char as you will see below

Give it 90-120 seconds and lift the bone to take a peek under there. When it has a good amount of char, flip it:

After another 90-120 seconds, flip and rotate:

I left it on the burner for a little over 2 minutes on the second side. Thus, no need to go for cross-hatch grill marks on that side.

That’s coast-to-coast browning. That’s a flavor crust only experienced in cast iron or an infrared sear station. And it’s glorious, indeed!

I will show the carved pics after I show how to cook a tomahawk steak on some different fuel platforms. 

How to Cook a Tomahawk Steak on a Charcoal Grill

We are still going for the reverse sear. Set up for two-zone or indirect grilling with coals on one side and nothing on the other. Target temp inside the grill is 250F-300F. Then, place the seasoned tomahawk on the side with no direct heat and a chunk of smoke wood on the hot coals. Close the lid until the steak reaches 10F-15F degrees short of your desired doneness. Remove the steak from the grill, stoke up the coals until the grill grates are north of 500F and sear the steak on both sides taking it up that last 10F-15F degrees. 

Here’s a tomahawk reverse seared on a charcoal grill. 

How to Cook a Tomahawk Steak on a Pellet Smoker

Set the smoker to 250F and place the seasoned steak inside once the cooker hits the target temp. When the steak reaches 10F-15F short of the target temp, remove it from the smoker and crank that smoker up to north of 450F-500F. For a pellet grill, I generally use something like Grill Grates to get good grills marks as they are generally harder to get browning we need for a fantastic steak. Allow the smoker to reach max temp and leave it there for a good 10 minutes to make sure those Grill Grates are hot then sear on each side.

**The proper grill marks come with this cadence: sear, flip, sear, flip, rotate, sear, flip, rotate, and sear. Don’t sear, rotate and sear again. This results with too much direct heat on one side which will cause a thick grey (dry) band around the outer edge of your steak**

Here is one of our patented step-by-step, pic-by-pic, foolproof recipe of a Tomahawk on a Pellet Cooker

How to Cook a Tomahawk Steak over Live Fire

This takes a little bit more finesse. You need to position the steak downwind from the fire to keep the meat in the smoke. Also, the beef has to be close enough to slowly bring the temp up, without cooking too fast. Too far away and it will take on some smoke, but not come up in temp much. A Santa Maria grill is ideal for this as the grill grate raises and lowers easily, making that adjustment simple. Again, when the steak gets to within 10F-15F short of your desired doneness, crank up the heat and sear that steak on both sides. 

Here are a couple tomahawks reverse searing over live fire on a Santa Maria cooker.

But how did our original tomahawk come out? It came out beautifully, of course:

Check out this slice:

Why Reverse Sear Steaks

By bringing up the temp slowly from the beginning, we don’t get that thick grey band around the outside. Also, the steak is imbued with some smoke flavor before we put that lovely char which browns and caramelizes the proteins. That flavor crust becomes the tastiest part of the beef. Smokey, juicy, lovely flavor crust and no thick, dry grey band.

Time to run that melted cowboy butter over the steak:

How to Cook a Tomahawk Steak Summary

Smokey, tender, juicy, crusty, and oh-so-tasty. There just isn’t a better way to cook a tomahawk steak than reverse searing, particularly with a sear station that gets wicked hot. Wait till you see what it does to burgers and salmon! 

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to leave them below or send me an email.

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ALSO, check below for the mandatory gnawing on the rib bone by my son who helped shoot this recipe with me. He earned that rib bone! 

Recipe Card

Print Recipe

5 from 2 votes

How to Cook a Tomahawk Steak

The secret to how to cook a tomahawk steak is to use the reverse sear method. The thickness of a tomahawk makes it an ideal candidate for the reverse sear.

Prep Time2 minutes mins

Cook Time40 minutes mins

Resting Time5 minutes mins

Course: Entree, Main Course, Steak

Cuisine: American, American Fare, Finger Food, Grilling, North American, Steak

Keyword: Bone In, Bone In Ribeye, Cast Iron Ribeyes, Flavor Crust, Gas Grill, How to cook a tomahawk steak, Infrared Grill, reverse sear, Reverse Sear on a Gas Grill, Reverse Sear Steak, Reverse Sear Tomahawk Sear Recipe, reverse seared, Reverse Seared Steak, Sear Station, Smoker Box, Steak

Servings: 4 People

Equipment

• Smoker box
• Wood chips Unsoaked
• Blowtorch Optional

Ingredients

• 1-2 Tomahawk steak(s)
• Salt, pepper, garlic seasoning SPG Seasoning

Instructions

• Season the top and bottom and the outer edge of the tomahawk steak
• Prepare the grill for two-zone or indirect grilling with coals or a burner hot on one side and nothing on the other. Target temperature inside the grill is 250F-300F. For a gas grill, place a smoker box full of smoke chips (we used pecan) over the hot burner. Blast the wood chips with that blow torch for about 5 seconds to get the chips smoldering. For charcoal, simply put a chunk of smoke wood on the coals. The steak(s) goes on the side of the grill with no direct heat.
• When the steak reaches 10F-15F short of the desired doneness, remove the steak from the grill and crank up the heat for searing. For charcoal, stoke up the coals, add more fuel and maybe move the fire closer to the grill grates. In this case, we cranked up the sear station on the MHP Hybrid grill to north of 700F.
• Sear the steak on both sides until the top and bottom have a nice, deep flavor crust.
• Once it reached the desired temp, remove from the grill and rest for five minutes and slice. Top with compound butter found in this recipe:

  https://grillinfools.com/garlic-and-herb-compound-butter/

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: June 30, 2026