How-To Guides

How to Cook Gammon Steak

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What is Gammon Steak?

How to Cook Gammon Steak: Gammon steak is a British pub classic — traditionally served with chips, a fried egg, and either a good chutney or a slice of pineapple. At Swaledale, our premium gammon steaks are cut from the hind legs of outdoor-reared, heritage breed pigs. The muscles are seam-butchered for an even cure, before being slowly brined using a traditional mix of spice, sugar, and salt. The result is a gammon steak with exceptional depth of flavour, a firm, juicy texture, and a naturally succulent finish. Perfect for grilling, pan-frying, or barbecuing, our gammon steaks are Always Fresh, Never Frozen®, and available for nationwide delivery.

How Long Does a Gammon Steak Take to Cook?

Grilling (around 3–4 minutes each side) or pan-frying (2–3 minutes each side) are the two best — and quickest — methods for cooking the perfect gammon steak. We recommend using a heavy-based frying pan or a griddle pan to add attractive char lines and prevent sticking.

Gammon steaks are also excellent cooked over the BBQ — the flames and smoke introduce a rich, subtle depth of flavour that elevates this classic cut beautifully.

What’s the Best Way to Cook Gammon Steak?

  1. Take your gammon steaks out of the refrigerator and remove them from the vacuum packaging.
  2. Pat dry any surface moisture and allow the steaks to come up to room temperature before cooking.
  3. Heat a heavy-based frying pan or griddle pan until hot, but not smoking.
  4. Just before cooking, lightly rub both sides of the steaks with olive oil and season with cracked black pepper if desired — there’s no need to add salt, as the gammon is already well-seasoned.
  5. Place the steaks into the dry, hot pan. Cook for 2–3 minutes on each side, resisting the urge to move them around. The gammon steaks will naturally release from the pan once a rich, golden crust has formed. If they feel stuck, give them a little more time.
  6. Flip and repeat on the other side, then serve immediately.

Top Tips for Cooking Gammon Steak

  • Let it breathe: Always bring your gammon steaks up to room temperature before cooking. This ensures even cooking and helps avoid the muscle fibres tightening, which can make the meat tough.
  • Use a heavy pan: A heavy-based frying pan or griddle gives you better heat distribution, helping achieve that golden, caramelised crust without overcooking the meat inside.
  • No need for extra salt: Gammon is already naturally salty from the curing process. Stick to cracked black pepper and maybe a touch of olive oil to bring out its best.
  • Resist moving it around: Once the gammon hits the pan, leave it be. Let a proper crust form — it will release naturally from the pan when it’s ready to turn.
  • Finish simply: A squeeze of lemon or a drizzle of honey after cooking can lift the flavour, especially if you’re pairing with a fried egg, roasted pineapple, or a good spoonful of chutney.
  • Barbecue bonus: Gammon steaks are fantastic grilled over charcoal — the smoke brings a whole new dimension to this familiar favourite.

What to Have with Gammon Steak

You don’t always have to follow the rule book when it comes to serving gammon steak. Pineapple is a classic pairing — its juicy sweetness cuts through the salty, rich meat brilliantly.

For a fresher twist, try a quick pineapple chutney: combine 100ml cider vinegar with 80g demerara sugar, bring to a vigorous boil, then add a double handful of diced pineapple, 1–2 finely chopped fresh red chillies (seeds included), and a chopped red onion. Boil for several minutes, remove from the heat, and chill. This sweet-sour-spicy chutney is the perfect foil for gammon steak.

Alternatively, warm cockles gently and serve with Valentine Warner’s Gammon & Cockles on Toast Recipe for something hearty and different. You could also try George Ryle’s Gammon Steak Recipe with Poached Leeks & Sauce Gribiche — both available now on our Journal.

Order meat online

Jorge hails from the Black Mountains where he grew up surrounded by hardy, native livestock. His passion for cookery was sparked by his upbringing, but developed and intensified alongside his respect for British breeds, and zeal for nose-to-tail eating.

In 2009 trained chef Jorge launched Swaledale in Haworth, and took his native-breed led whole-carcass butchery philosophy to high profile restaurateurs. Jorge is a passionate procurer and hanger of meat, and is keen to showcase the sublime taste and texture that comes from ageing, higher fat content, and an older carcass. Jorge proudly invests in native-breeds, as maintaining their market demand is crucial to their very survival.

Jorge studied Creative Writing at Leeds University, and is a former Welsh athletics champion. He lives with his wife, ceramicist Amy Thomas, and their three children – Fynn, Bea, and Matilda – on a remote grouse moor in West Yorkshire.

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  • Fancy a bit of a butcher’s tip? Or a hack, if you will. Well look no further. Here, @grylos, gets creative with a joint of boned and rolled beef rump, creating three, totally different meals, from the one piece of meat. A great example of some leftfield thinking and the perfect way to add a little variety into your weekly meal planning. Along the spectrum from raw to medium, your week could go a little something like this; tartare and toast lightly rubbed with garlic for lunch on Wednesday; steak night on Friday night, with chips, good red wine and a bowl of bearnaise; a roast dinner on Sunday. Bob’s your uncle, Fanny’s your aunt and a carnivorous and hugely satisfying week of eating is complete. All that from a single rolled rump of beef! A life hack if I ever saw one… Did you know that our rumps won 3 stars at the Great Taste Awards? 3-star rump, you can’t argue with that!
  • Do you love bacon? Here’s our in house science and history teacher, @grylos, talking osmosis, salt, and the slow work of dry curing bacon.
  • Burns Night, 25 January. Two pastry wrapped tributes to Robert Burns. Made with chef Josh Whitehead of @finer_pleasures. A haggis sausage roll with coarse cut native breed pork. A hot water crust pie of mutton and lamb haggis, oats, onions and spice. Food for a cold night.
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  • Now the depths of winter descend. The excitement of Christmas has passed, but do not let that fool you. These months are still some of the best for eating roasted meats and leaning into deeper, newer flavour profiles. Here is a traditional, and not so traditional, approach to our pork middle. We send a lot of our pork middles out to chefs, ready for them to stuff and roast in their own way, using both the loin and the belly. You will see plenty of porchetta on the market that uses just the belly. This is different. Using both cuts gives balance, structure, and allows the flavour of the pork itself to shine. For our website, we also offer a less traditional version, stuffed simply with our fennel sausage meat. That brings seasoning right through the joint, and a little extra fat to help keep everything moist during a long, slow roast. It is a brilliant cut to have, either as a roast or the following day, sliced cold for sandwiches.
  • Chef George Ryle @grylos, signing off the year with us. A delicious Christmas ham glaze. Nothing clever. Nothing rushed, but some useful tips. Thank you for watching, cooking along, and sticking with us this year. Merry Christmas.
Ask yourself this. When did you last have a really good pork chop? This is why we keep coming back to it. Native, rare breed pork. Dry aged on the bone. Proper depth of flavour. Nothing like the pale, wet stuff you see elsewhere. These are our Pork Chops with Rosemary and Anchovy Butter. Two thick, rindless chops. Two discs of handmade compound butter. Anchovy, rosemary, lemon zest, a little shallot. Old friends. It works.
Ask yourself this. When did you last have a really good pork chop? This is why we keep coming back to it. Native, rare breed pork. Dry aged on the bone. Proper depth of flavour. Nothing like the pale, wet stuff you see elsewhere. These are our Pork Chops with Rosemary and Anchovy Butter. Two thick, rindless chops. Two discs of handmade compound butter. Anchovy, rosemary, lemon zest, a little shallot. Old friends. It works.
@swaledalebutchers
@swaledalebutchers
•
Follow
Ask yourself this. When did you last have a really good pork chop? This is why we keep coming back to it. Native, rare breed pork. Dry aged on the bone. Proper depth of flavour. Nothing like the pale, wet stuff you see elsewhere. These are our Pork Chops with Rosemary and Anchovy Butter. Two thick, rindless chops. Two discs of handmade compound butter. Anchovy, rosemary, lemon zest, a little shallot. Old friends. It works.
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Burns Night, 25 January. Two pastry wrapped tributes to Robert Burns. Made with chef Josh Whitehead of @finer_pleasures. A haggis sausage roll with coarse cut native breed pork. A hot water crust pie of mutton and lamb haggis, oats, onions and spice. Food for a cold night.
Burns Night, 25 January. Two pastry wrapped tributes to Robert Burns. Made with chef Josh Whitehead of @finer_pleasures. A haggis sausage roll with coarse cut native breed pork. A hot water crust pie of mutton and lamb haggis, oats, onions and spice. Food for a cold night.
Burns Night, 25 January. Two pastry wrapped tributes to Robert Burns. Made with chef Josh Whitehead of @finer_pleasures. A haggis sausage roll with coarse cut native breed pork. A hot water crust pie of mutton and lamb haggis, oats, onions and spice. Food for a cold night.
Burns Night, 25 January. Two pastry wrapped tributes to Robert Burns. Made with chef Josh Whitehead of @finer_pleasures. A haggis sausage roll with coarse cut native breed pork. A hot water crust pie of mutton and lamb haggis, oats, onions and spice. Food for a cold night.
Burns Night, 25 January. Two pastry wrapped tributes to Robert Burns. Made with chef Josh Whitehead of @finer_pleasures. A haggis sausage roll with coarse cut native breed pork. A hot water crust pie of mutton and lamb haggis, oats, onions and spice. Food for a cold night.
@swaledalebutchers
@swaledalebutchers
•
Follow
Burns Night, 25 January. Two pastry wrapped tributes to Robert Burns. Made with chef Josh Whitehead of @finer_pleasures. A haggis sausage roll with coarse cut native breed pork. A hot water crust pie of mutton and lamb haggis, oats, onions and spice. Food for a cold night.
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Winter. It felt strange being in Yorkshire, watching the news from the south where snow lay thick and sudden, while here January had arrived quietly, cold and wet, but not yet truly winter as we know it. Up here the season has always moved at a slower pace, and there is something steadying in remembering that. The idea that we should charge straight on after Christmas is a modern one, and it sits awkwardly with bodies and minds that are still tuned to pause, to take stock, to look back at the year just gone. Out on the farms, there is no rush but plenty to do. Some are already lambing, others preparing for it, working with the land rather than against it as the days begin, almost imperceptibly, to lengthen. The fields are still subdued, but there are signs, if you look closely, that life is beginning to stir again. And so, it feels right, now and then, to slow everything down and simply notice Yorkshire in January, not as something to be endured, but as a quiet and beautiful part of the year in its own right.
Winter. It felt strange being in Yorkshire, watching the news from the south where snow lay thick and sudden, while here January had arrived quietly, cold and wet, but not yet truly winter as we know it. Up here the season has always moved at a slower pace, and there is something steadying in remembering that. The idea that we should charge straight on after Christmas is a modern one, and it sits awkwardly with bodies and minds that are still tuned to pause, to take stock, to look back at the year just gone. Out on the farms, there is no rush but plenty to do. Some are already lambing, others preparing for it, working with the land rather than against it as the days begin, almost imperceptibly, to lengthen. The fields are still subdued, but there are signs, if you look closely, that life is beginning to stir again. And so, it feels right, now and then, to slow everything down and simply notice Yorkshire in January, not as something to be endured, but as a quiet and beautiful part of the year in its own right.
@swaledalebutchers
@swaledalebutchers
•
Follow
Winter. It felt strange being in Yorkshire, watching the news from the south where snow lay thick and sudden, while here January had arrived quietly, cold and wet, but not yet truly winter as we know it. Up here the season has always moved at a slower pace, and there is something steadying in remembering that. The idea that we should charge straight on after Christmas is a modern one, and it sits awkwardly with bodies and minds that are still tuned to pause, to take stock, to look back at the year just gone. Out on the farms, there is no rush but plenty to do. Some are already lambing, others preparing for it, working with the land rather than against it as the days begin, almost imperceptibly, to lengthen. The fields are still subdued, but there are signs, if you look closely, that life is beginning to stir again. And so, it feels right, now and then, to slow everything down and simply notice Yorkshire in January, not as something to be endured, but as a quiet and beautiful part of the year in its own right.
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@swaledalebutchers
@swaledalebutchers
•
Follow
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@swaledalebutchers
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•
Follow
Chef George Ryle @grylos, signing off the year with us. A delicious Christmas ham glaze. Nothing clever. Nothing rushed, but some useful tips. Thank you for watching, cooking along, and sticking with us this year. Merry Christmas.
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