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July 19, 2023

Slow Cooker Petite Sirloin Steak

Some months back, there was a raging sale on Petite Sirloin Steak at one of my local stores. Admittedly, this is not a cut of beef that I typically purchase, but I will give most things a go. So I went for it! I actually froze it when I got home and it sat for quite a while. While digging around to decide what might tickle my fancy for meals during the week, there it was. Just waiting for its’ day in the spotlight. Just one night to defrost and I was off and running!

What to do with this cut?

My first step in figuring out what to do with this cut was to do what we all would do…go to the internet! I found a site called, “Beef, It’s what’s for dinner” that gave some good info about what type of cut the Petite Sirloin is and best cooking methods. The issue was that I had not anticipated needing to marinate for hours, and the Petite Sirloin is the type of cut that really needs it. Athough the article indicated grilling or broiling was the best method for this little bugger of a cut, I began thinking about alternatives. Instant pot? Air Fryer? Slow Cooker? After a bit of research, I stumbled on a blog called, “No Spoon Necessary”. Low and behold, there was a slow cooker recipe fit for just about any steak. The recipe can be found here.

The ingredients in the recipe were relatively simple, so I only made changes where I did not have an ingredient, or wanted to bend the flavor a bit to my taste. And given this is a slow cooker recipe, the only real work was the slicing and dicing and reducing the gravy once the steaks were done. Amazing!

Ingredients

2.5 lbs. petite sirloin steaks (roughly 4 steaks)
1 white or yellow onion, finely chopped. Note: the original recipe calls for sliced onions. I used chopped to have a bit of a chunky onion sauce to serve with. Do your thing with this one.
2 cups low sodium beef broth
2 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
1 Tbsp Onion Powder
1 Tbsp Garlic Powder
1 Tbsp dried Thyme
1 Tbsp dried Rosemary
2 large garlic cloves, pressed through garlic press, or very finely minced
2 Tbsp butter
2 large Rosemary sprigs
Salt and Cracked Black Pepper
Parsley to finish

Instruction

Line bottom of the slow cooker with the onions. Season steaks with salt and pepper and place steaks on top of onion, spreading them out side by side. Pour in the broth and Worcestershire. Mix all other ingredients, other than butter, parsley and rosemary sprigs, in a small bowl. Distribute evenly over the steaks. Add butter pats and rosemary sprigs on top and close that cooker up!

My slow cooker tends to cook really fast. I cooked for 5 hours on low. However, check your steaks for doneness at 4.5-5 hours and adjust accordingly. Once done, using a slotted spatula, scoop out and plate the steaks. Cover to keep warm. You will be left with a lot of broth in the slow cooker that can be made into an amazing onion gravy. If there is any obvious fat on the top of the broth, scoop off while still in the slow cooker. Then transfer to a wide frying pan.

Bring heat to medium and sift in 1-2 Tbsp. of flour. Go gradually, so you know how much you need. The gravy will thicken pretty quickly, so just be patient. Use a whisk to get all lumps out. Continue to whisk until it is at what you consider gravy thickness. If you have a gravy boat that separates the fat, use it. If not, simply check the gravy as it sets for fat settling on top and remove.

Plate and serve gravy as your family likes it! Either family style on the plated steak, or in the gravy boat, for each to serve themselves! Serve with my vegetable tray bake recipe! YUM!

Notes

This recipe will not deliver a steak with char or caramelized exterior. It will delivery a deliciously tender steak that is amazing with gravy, similar to how you would cook a pot roast. But change and new experiences are everything, so give it a go!

The veggie tray bake shown with the slow cooker petite sirloin is a play on my originally posted recipe. This time I used potato, radish, broccoli, carrot, garlic and shallot. Winner every time!!

If you like this recipe, give my pork with sweet plantains and veg or my slow cooker pork carnitas recipe a try!

Slow Cooker Pork Carnitas

There is nothing better than a recipe that wows and ALSO proves to be incredibly easy. This recipe is both. Once you have gathered all of your ingredients, your slow cooker does the bulk of the work! One of the best parts is that the leftovers can be better than the initial recipe itself!

Ingredients:

Ingredients

3.75 – 4 pound bone-in pork butt roast. We love the quality of the pork delivered from Crowd Cow
1 Red onion, cut into fairly large wedges
6-8 garlic cloves. In my house, more is always better!
1 Tbsp. kosher salt
2 Tsp. course ground pepper
1 Tbsp. dried oregano
2 Bay leaves
.75 cup Pineapple or Apple juice
.75 cup cola (made with cane sugar, rather than corn syrup, if you can find it). Coca Cola now has their old style cane sugar cola in the bottles!

Instruction

Here is the best part…the simplicity! Trim a bit of the fat cap off of the pork butt. There should be a significant amount left, but I find removing about 1/4 of the fat has best results. Score what is left of the fat cap and place roast into the crock pot fat cap to the side. Add balance of the ingredients, close and seal lid and set to low temp for 7.5 hours. Your job here is almost done!

Once the slow cooker is done, you should have an amazingly browned top and fall-apart roast sitting in some pretty amazing juices! Remove the roast to a cutting board and let rest for 15 or so mins. Using your hands, or 2 forks, pull the pork apart into chunks, leaving some chunks larger than others (this just makes the texture more interesting! Remove any excessive fat that is left, although most will have rendered into the juice that flavored the roast! Yum! Do not toss the juice just yet…

Transfer pork to very lightly oiled sheet pan and spread out. Pour some of the juice over top just to put moisture evenly. Crisp under the broiler just until crispy at edges and beautifully browned all over! If you intend to only use a portion of the pork right away, you can broil only what you will be serving and store the balance (with some of the juice) to broil or to pan fry at the point that you intend to use.

Serving

So…many…options. Tortillas, salsa, chopped onion, cilantro, diced tomato, salsa verde…sky is the limit! For this meal, I went simple with flour tortillas, some diced tomato, serrano chilis, leafy greens and cilantro. Leftovers this morning were super crisped in a pan and were as, if not more, delicious than the first go around!