Best Italian Steak Recipe: Tagliata (In a Pan)!

The best Italian steak recipe in Italy—aside from the Florentine Steak, of course— has to be the Tagliata! Tagliata is a sirloin steak cooked to perfection (usually, rare) and plated as thin slices (tagliata means cut in Italian).  It’s a traditional Tuscan dish, and is thought to be a reinterpretation of another Tuscan classic: Bistecca alla Fiorentina.

Traditionally, Tuscan Tagliata is prepared on a grill. However, you can easily make Tagliata at home in a pan or skillet—and we’ll show you how to do that step-by-step in this pan-seared steak recipe!

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Video recipe for the best Italian Steak Recipe: Tagliata, as featured on the PIATTO™ YouTube Cooking Channel. Turn on the subtitles to watch it in English. Coming soon (narrated in English).

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Best Italian Steak Recipe: Tagliata Ingredients

Like so many authentic Italian recipes, you don’t need many ingredients to make this dish, but the ingredients you do use should be high quality! For the Tagliata, that means we need quality steak, the right fat for searing the steak in a pan, and some salt.

Choosing the Steak

To make ItalianTagliata, choose a quality sirloin steak. The one we’ve chosen here is a…

• Chianina sirloin (chianina is an Italian breed of cow famously raised in Tuscany)
• Weight: about 1 lb (.5 kg)
• Thickness: about 1 inch (2.5 cm) thick
• Aged: 3-4 weeks

Fat? Clarified Butter

Clarified butter is the fat of choice for searing steak in a pan. It has a smoke point of 482° F (250° C)— much higher than unclarified butter. Don’t have clarified butter on hand? No worries! Learn how to make clarified butter easily at home using normal unclarified butter in our guide.

Clarified butter will not burn so it will not produce pyrolysis of carbohydrates or proteins because it has none.

Salt and Olive Oil

Salt is fundamental to preparing the steak properly, as we will discuss. In this sense it’s both a main ingredient, and a possible condiment.

All other condiments are optional, though you may want to finish the steak with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil as they do in Tuscany. We often finish ours with a sprinkle of flake salt as well.

Condiments

A great way to serve Tagliata? With a simple arugula salad and a demi-glace with aged balsamic vinegar—which you could also drizzle over the salad. Arugula (rucola in Italian)

How to Cook Pan-Seared Steak for a Tagliata

Traditionally, a Tuscan Tagliata is cooked on a grill. We’ll cover how to do that in another guide. Pan-searing steak in a pan is both easy and will produce a delicious result—as long as you use the right tools for the job!

Assuming you’ve already selected a quality steak, the first step is to salt it correctly!

Salt the Steak.. Then Wait 2 Hours

Salt the steak generously on both sides, pressing the salt into the meat. Then, let the steak rest for a couple of hours.

Salting is a critical step! To explain why (with a bit of science): When we add salt to our meat, we alter the osmolarity within the fibers of the meat. Naturally the juices will be attracted towards the surface (where the salt is). However, as the salt distributes inside the sirloin, the juices will also redistribute and an osmotic balance will be once again reached.

That means if we wait a couple of hours after salting, very little juice from the steak will be lost.

Do not listen to the alleged experts especially on the net who advise you to salt only at the end of cooking…

These are people who carry on out of routine, mechanically, out of preconceptions… and I’m also talking about chefs, not just enthusiasts…

Don’t listen to so-called experts who advise to only salt at the end of cooking the meat. It’s fine to add a sprinkle of fine, coarse of flake salt at the end, but that salt will never penetrate the meat. The result will be meat that is overly salty on the surface and lacking flavor inside.

Wrap the steak in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge for 2 hours.

After the 2 hours rest, let the steak come to room temperature for about 1/2 hour before cooking it. During the rest time, you can prepare any sauces or condiments you may want for your finished steak.

After the 2 hours, the steak will have lost very little juice. At this time, we remove any excess fat or extraneous parts of the steak which we then use for stew.

Pan Searing the Steak

The Right Pan for the Job

Just as important as choosing the right fat for pan-searing the steak (clarified butter) is selecting the right pan for the job.

Use a seasoned cast iron or carbon steel pan. These pans take a bit longer to heat up, but retain heat very well for an even cook. All this translates into a homogeneous and above all fast cooking time. Also? We are using high heat to pan sear our steak —around 662° F (350° C) —so this high heat will irreversibly warp a pan that is not suited for the job.

Here’s the pan we use, as seen in the photos and video (affiliate link):

• Carbon Steel Pan, 11″: https://amzn.to/3Mt9bru

Sear on High Heat

When the pan reaches a temperature of around 662° F (350° C), it’s time to cook the steak! The goal is to produce the Maillard reaction as quickly as possible in order to minimize the loss of juices. This reaction is already triggered above 120° C, so we have a stronger reaction at the 350° C that we are using to cook the steak.

We only need to sear the steak for a couple of minutes per side (as you’ll see in the video). Sear until the surface steak of the steak looks like the ours (seen below). Then, flip it and sear the other side of the steak.

You’ll want to baste the surface with the hot butter, as we are doing here…

And finally, be sure to sear the sides of the steak as well!

Let the Steak Rest Before Cutting It!

Once the steak is properly seared and ready, it’s time to let it rest! This is not optional!!

Let your steak rest 10 minutes before cutting it, under penalty of losing the juices inside!

Let the steak rest for ten minutes before cutting it, under penalty of losing the juices! This is because the juices are in the center of the meat right after you remove the steak from the heat. It takes a few minutes for the juices to redistribute throughout the steak. So we leave the steak rest for at least 5 minutes—10 minutes if we manage to resist the temptation. Only then do we cut our steak open to make the Italian Tagliata!

In the meantime, you’ll want to warm the plates you plan to serve the meat on (to about 113° F or 45° C).

De-Glaze, Demi-Glace?

Once the steak is cooked, we like to de-glaze the pan with a demi-glace, add a few drops of our favorite balsamic vinegar, let it reduce… and filter!

Plate and Serve the Slices of Italian Steak (Tagliata)

Thinly slice the steak to your liking. The slices you see below are probably the most common for the Italian Tagliata, however you can even cut thinner slices!

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