The Simple Finger Test To Gauge How Done Your Steak Is

Cooking the perfect cut of steak depends fully on your preferred internal temperature. To some, perfection is nothing more than a brief pan-seared steak that's black and blue, while others prefer to err on the side of food safety and consume a cut that is well done. In restaurants, the go-to style for steak preparation is often medium rare, meaning its internal temperature is somewhere between 130 and 140 degrees Fahrenheit. But if you don't have a meat thermometer handy, then there is another easy way to understand how done your steak is — and believe it or not, you only need your hands.

The hand test is a tried and true method that chefs use to determine when a steak should be taken off the heat, but it's something that you master over time. The more you cook steak and use this trick, the more accurate it will be. It starts with one hand relaxed, palm open, as if you were holding out your hand for someone to place something in it. For ease of explanation, we'll use the right hand as the relaxed one. Then, using a finger from your left hand, feel the muscle just below your right thumb. It should be very soft — this is essentially the same softness as rare meat, so this is your starting point for the finger test.

Once your palm is open and you've felt the relaxed muscle below your right thumb, you can start pressing your other right fingers, one by one, to that right thumb. If you press the index finger to your thumb, you'll feel the muscle below the right thumb get slightly tighter. Take a finger from the left hand and feel that same muscle. It's tighter but still fairly soft. When steak is cooked to rare, it will feel like this.

Now, remove the right index finger, and place your right middle finger to the thumb. That muscle once again feels even tighter, and this is the same firmness the meat has when cooking your steak to medium-rare. As you work your way down your hand, you'll see that the fingers further from the thumb create an even tighter muscle just below the thumb. If you swap the middle finger for the ring finger, that muscle area below the right thumb now feels the same as a medium steak. 

Finally, repeat this movement with the right pinky finger touching the right thumb. This is the firmest of steaks: well done. As you get more comfortable using this method to cook steak, it will become even easier to gauge the doneness of meat with your hands. You might ultimately be able to ditch the meat thermometer altogether.