The Cold Water Method That Thaws Frozen Tuna Steak In No Time (Well, Almost)

Keeping proteins like meat or fish in your freezer can be convenient, but only if you actually remember to thaw them. Though the ideal method is to let items like tuna steaks gently defrost in your refrigerator, you may not have the hours needed for this process. Still, there's no need to reshape your entire menu. There's a simple way to speed up your frozen tuna steaks' thawing process with the help of cold water.

Home cooks could hardly ask for a less complicated method. To thaw quickly while preserving texture and taste, just leave the tuna steaks in their packaging and submerge them in a bowl of cold water. Keep this up as long as necessary, changing the water every half hour to ensure it stays cool and the fish thaws consistently. For food safety reasons, it's vital to ensure the fish isn't thawing at room temperature, which can allow the growth of harmful bacteria.

Generally speaking, you should be ready to cook your fully thawed fish within an hour or two at most. The exact time will vary based on the thickness and other dimensions of the tuna steak.

Impatient cooks may be tempted to speed things up, but taking shortcuts with this method is not advised. The answer to whether you can thaw frozen food in warm water is an emphatic no from the USDA, which recommends thawing either in the refrigerator, cold water, or the microwave. The latter method is the fastest, though it's not recommended for fish.

Alternatively, you can try thawing your frozen fish in milk, which offers the same benefits as cold-water thawing, plus a few more. These include keeping the tuna moist during cooking and removing any unpleasantly fishy flavors or odors.

Now that you've figured out the proper way to thaw your fish, don't fall victim to other mistakes everyone makes when cooking tuna steaks. These can occur before cooking, like over-marinating or failing to brine your tuna steaks, or during cooking, like failing to pat the steaks dry, not getting the pan hot enough, or using cooking fat with a low smoke point. But it all starts with a proper thaw. By keeping this cold-water trick in mind, you'll never find yourself caught unprepared with still-frozen tuna steaks.