A couple of months ago, we answered our door to a man selling meat out of his van. While I was extremely alarmed at such a weird situation, I quickly Googled the name on the side of the van to learn that this was actually a thing. We bought tons of already spiced meat. My husband mentioned that he had no idea what to do with plain beef patties because he likes to jam-pack his burgers full of spices and other things. The salesman said that he heard that they were great for Salisbury steak so I got to looking into how to make it.

I got the general idea, although it seems that everybody prefers theirs differently. Based on the response I was getting from my husband and the kids, I stuck relatively with this recipe outline and it seems to have worked out well. Hopefully you will feel the same or be able to modify the recipe for your own tastes and preferences!

(My pictures won’t match the recipe perfectly, as I’ve changed it over time also!)

Ingredients:

1 lb of ground beef made into patties
Garlic powder
1 small onion, sliced (if you don’t use/have one, I suggest a bit of onion powder for flavor!)
Salt
Pepper
1 can beef broth or 1 cup water + 1 beef bouillon cube
1 tbs butter
1 tbs vegetable oil
1 can cream of mushroom or 1 tbs flour
1 cup fresh mushrooms (optional)

 

Directions:

1. Sprinkle each side of the patties with garlic powder, salt, and pepper while you melt the butter and oil in the frying pan on medium-low heat.

2. Brown patties on both sides and then transfer them to a plate.

3. Sauté mushrooms and onions in the same pan. You may need to add more oil. You can nix the mushrooms and/or onions if you don’t like either. I don’t like the texture of mushrooms so I don’t eat them and just added a little extra onions because I love them!

4. Add beef broth or water and bouillon cube.

5. If you are adding cream of mushroom, add it now. If not, add the flour to thicken your gravy if you prefer. Place the patties back into the pan and heat just long enough to warm up the soup and patties.

6. Serve over rice or noodles!

 

This is the type of loose recipe that’s less of a recipe and more of an idea to start out with. You can tweak it all over the place. I’ve made it a million different ways and the kids and I always enjoy it. We used to eat the Salisbury steaks came already in prepared in a box so this is a huge improvement and it’s almost as easy.

I ended up putting too much onion in the meal pictured. I use the cream of mushroom because I LOVE the taste of mushrooms but I can’t handle the actual texture of them, for some odd reason. At some point, I’d love to make cream of mushroom soup from scratch since I know that most canned things are not very good for you.

What variations of Salisbury steak do you make? What do you add or leave out?