Quick and Easy luxury dinner at Hamburger Helper price – Poor Man’s Steak is really just stew meat dipped in a fluffy Béarnaise Sauce making this recipe the ultimate family dinner with 5 ingredients and 20 minutes.
Poor Man’s Steak
Equipment
- Beef Stew Meat Family Pack, 2.15 – 3.0 lb – Walmart.com
- Weber� Chicago Steak� Seasoning 13 oz. Shaker – Walmart.com
- Knorr Sauce Mix Bearnaise Sauces For Simple Meals and Sides Cooks in 4 Minutes 0.9 oz – Walmart.com
Ingredients
- 2-3 lbs of Beef Stew Meat
- Chicago Seasoning
- Bearnaise Sauce Packet
- 1 c. Milk or Heavy Cream
- 1/4 c. Butter
Instructions
- Dump the Stew Meat into an Electric Skillet (or skillet on stovetop) on Medium heat. Generously sprinkle Chicago Seasoning all over it.
- Cover with lid and cook for about 12 minutes. You can stir occasionally in that time.
- Remove lid and continue to cook until all the liquid caramelizes
- About 5 minutes before that time is up, heat up 1 c. of cream / milk in a tupperware dish (or a bowl) in the microwave for about a minute or two until the butter melts. Add contents in the Béarnaise Sauce packet and whisk it. Microwave for 2 minutes at a time, stirring in between, until it’s thick.
Notes
Where did I get this Recipe for Poor Man’s Steak?
I spent many years in my sexy 20’s going out to dinner at places that served Filet Mignon with Béarnaise Sauce. Really, offering me Filet Mignon for a first date is a guaranteed yes.
But then I had this boss when I worked for a non-profit in accounting, and we loved to do a Steak Dinner movie night. Now she was a Scorpio Woman about 10-20 years older than me (the one who gave me the recipe to Shepherd’s Pie that she doesn’t remember ever making), and she was persnickety about her meat. She had to get a whole beef tenderloin from a meat market (not a grocery store), and have them cut them into filets for her.
She would grill them on her George Foreman Grill seasoning them with just garlic salt on both sides.
She also loved serving it with Knorr Bearnaise Sauce, a Loaded Baked Potato, and Fresh Green Beans.
Then fast forward 20 years, and 3 kids later, I cannot afford Filet Mignon. I can barely afford one chef-made for myself let alone 4. My grocery bill gets pretty tight, and apparently, I suck at grilling to justify buying a whole tenderloin.
So I was at the grocery store trying to plan dinner while craving filet mignon, saw the filet mignon in its overpriced glory, and was trying to resist the temptation of blowing an entire week’s groceries on one meal, maybe that’s hyperbole, but you know, I was resisting the snares of dead cows when I realized that I’ve used stew meat before for steak fajitas, steak salad, steak things… why not use it for steak steak?
It’s even cheaper than the sirloins.
And it cooks better on stovetop than a real steak.
And while I wanted to call it Broke Mofos Steak, people actually actively search the term Poor Man’s Steak, so I went with that. My kids know it as Steak Dinner.
Though the oldest offspring has questioned why stew meat is not called cubed steak, and why cubed steak is called cubed steak… I guess they were trying to avoid the sexual innuendo of Pounded Steak? Or maybe that’s just too confusing for weights and measurements?
Ingredients
Like really this is an extensive ingredient list for Poor Man’s Steak but you need…
- Beef Stew Meat
- Chicago Seasoning
If you want Béarnaise Sauce (you probably do), then
- Knorr Béarnaise Sauce Packet
- 1 cup of heavy cream or milk
- 1/4 cup of butter or margarine
I don’t know whether to call this a 2 ingredient recipe or a 5 ingredient recipe, but I personally almost demand the Béarnaise sauce to a point where my cousin still makes fun of my obsession for it.
Process
When I say super quick and easy dinner recipe, I mean it. This baby takes about 20 minutes to make, and really you just throw in one ingredient, season, and microwave the sauce.
I make this Poor Man’s Steak recipe via electric skillet. It’s just easier. Sometimes I do a regular skillet on Stovetop.
But really just plop the meat in, season, slap the heat on medium on stovetop (medium low on electric skillet – about 250) and then cook for 12 minutes until the meat is done. You may decide to do less time.
I like to cover it with a lid to keep it moist and cook all of it without having to flip or mix it up much. Less fuss. It’s a lot like boiling it at that rate. So for that reason, if you cover with a lid, you want to do about 3 to 5 minutes uncovered to let it caramelize and coat the beef pieces with seasoning. It really sucks if you don’t do that.
Sides
The easiest side dish with Poor Man’s Steak is to take the beef hunks out, replace with whole mushrooms, and cook those in the gooey burnt up goodness of the steak residue. Get that flavor in it. Maybe add more Chicago Seasoning. But not too much or the kids will complain.
Other sides that go well with this…
- Loaded Baked Potato
- Mashed Potatoes with Bearnaise Sauce as a gravy
- Green Beans
- Broccoli
- Asparagus with Hollandaise
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