Beef

Country Steak Bites

Name: Country Steak Bites
Prep time: 5 min
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients: 2 lbs Beef cubes (pick one below); 1½ cups Water or beef broth; 1 packet Cook SLO Country Steak Bites

Tender bite-size beef in a savory brown sauce. Simple and hearty.

Prep 5 min LOW 6–7 hours HIGH 3–4 hours Serves 6

Country Steak Bites, finished and plated — Serving suggestion

This is the most straightforward thing in the beef line. Cubed beef, savory brown sauce, done. No shredding, no slicing, no assembly.

It's the recipe for a night when you don't want to think. Cut the beef into cubes in the morning, come home to something that goes over mashed potatoes and disappears.

It also works as an appetizer. Skewer the pieces with toothpicks and put them out with the sauce for dipping.

Why you'll love it

No shredding or slicing.

Everything is already bite-size.

The simplest recipe here.

Four ingredients including the packet.

Works as a main or an appetizer.

Over potatoes for dinner, on toothpicks for a party.

Uses cheap cuts well.

Stew meat is one of the least expensive things at the counter.

What's already in the packet

OnionBeef bouillonGarlicBlack pepperPaprika

A clean, savory beef base with paprika and pepper. No dairy, no frills.

Choose your setting

Recommended

LOW · 6–7 hours

Low and slow gives collagen time to melt and flavors time to build. It is the setting this recipe was written for.

HIGH · 3–4 hours

For when you started late. It gets dinner done, but the texture is better on LOW.

Done at 190–200°F

Safe at 145°F, but chuck cubes stay chewy until the collagen breaks down.

You'll Need

2 lbs Beef cubes (pick one below)
1½ cups Water or beef broth
1 packet Cook SLO Country Steak Bites

Pick your beef

2 lbs

Beef stew meat

2 lbs

Sirloin, in cubes

2 lbs

Chuck roast, in cubes

Roasts 145°F, ground beef 160°F

Add vegetables

Baby potatoesSliced mushrooms (fresh or frozen)Sliced onion (fresh or frozen)Thick-cut carrots (fresh or frozen)Pearl onions (frozen)Green beans (fresh or frozen)

Baby potatoes, sliced onion (fresh or frozen) and thick-cut carrots (fresh or frozen) at the start, on the bottom; mushrooms at the start to melt into the sauce, or the last two hours to keep their shape; pearl onions (frozen) in the last two hours; green beans (fresh or frozen) in the last hour.

When to add what

When	Add	Why
At the start, on the bottom	Baby potatoesSliced onion (fresh or frozen)Thick-cut carrots (fresh or frozen)	Root vegetables cook slower than meat. They belong closest to the heat, and they hold the meat up out of the liquid. Cut everything an inch and a half or larger — smaller pieces disintegrate.
At the start, or the last two hours	Sliced mushrooms (fresh or frozen)	Mushrooms are a choice. At the start they melt into the sauce and deepen it. In the last two hours they hold their shape and keep some bite.
Last two hours	Pearl onions (frozen)	Long enough to cook through, short enough to keep their shape.
Last hour	Green beans (fresh or frozen)	Any longer and green beans go grey, squash turns to water, and pineapple falls apart.

What each one does to the dish

Baby potatoes

Makes it a one-pot meal. Potatoes drink up the sauce and stretch the pot by two servings.

Sliced mushrooms (fresh or frozen)

Depth. The single biggest flavour change you can make to a savoury pot, and it makes the sauce taste like it simmered longer.

Sliced onion (fresh or frozen)

Melts into the sauce and sweetens it. Worth adding even if you do not like onions, because they vanish.

Thick-cut carrots (fresh or frozen)

Sweetness and colour. Cut thick or they disappear over a long cook.

Pearl onions (frozen)

Melts into the sauce and sweetens it. Worth adding even if you do not like onions, because they vanish.

Green beans (fresh or frozen)

Colour and a bit of snap against a soft dish.

All optional. The recipe works with none of them.

Two ways to do this

If you're home

Follow the timing table above and add things when they're due.

About an hour is all you need

If you're out all day

Put in at the start as normal: baby potatoes, sliced onion (fresh or frozen), thick-cut carrots (fresh or frozen) and sliced mushrooms (fresh or frozen). These need the full cook anyway.

Add pearl onions (frozen) and green beans (fresh or frozen) when you walk in the door. Forty-five minutes to an hour on low is enough for all of it, and it will taste better than if it had cooked all day.

If you would rather not touch it at all, put everything in at the start and use frozen where you can. It will be softer than the timing above intends and the greens will lose their colour, but it will taste good and dinner is ready when you walk in.

Frozen is the better choice for a long day. Already cut, holds its shape better than fresh over eight or nine hours, and goes in straight from the bag with no thawing. Frozen diced onion and pepper strips remove the only real prep this recipe has.

Pasta and noodles

**In the pot.** A cup of dry egg noodles in the last twenty-five minutes with an extra cup of hot broth. Skip the lid-off reduction step if you do this. **Or separately.** Spoon over buttered egg noodles or mashed potatoes.

Before anything goes in the pot

1
Brown the meat first
Pat it dry, get a heavy pan properly hot, and work in two batches so nothing steams. Two to three minutes a side. You want colour, not doneness — the crock pot finishes it.
2
Deglaze the pan and pour it in
This is the step almost everyone skips, and it wastes half the benefit of browning. Most of the flavour you just made is stuck to the pan. Pour a cup of the recipe's water into the hot empty pan, scrape everything loose with a wooden spoon while it bubbles, and pour that into the crock pot. Count it toward the total liquid.

These happen outside the crock pot, before it's switched on.

Tonight's Plan

1
Sear the cubes in two batches until well browned.
Small pieces mean a lot of surface area, so browning does more here than on a whole roast. Two batches — crowding the pan steams them.
2
Put the potatoes and carrots in, then the beef on top.
Vegetables underneath, as always.
3
Deglaze the pan into the pot, add the liquid and the packet.
Nothing gets left in that pan.
4
Put the lid on.
Eight hours on LOW to 190–200°F.
5
Take the lid off for the last thirty minutes to reduce the sauce.
It will look thin at eight hours. Half an hour uncovered concentrates it into something that coats the beef.

Vegetables

Stir well, then take the lid off for 15 minutes.

This concentrates the sauce.

Spoon over rice or potatoes.

The sauce is thin by design — it's meant to soak in.

Stirring

Leave the lid on

Nothing in this one settles or scorches, and there is plenty of liquid moving. Every lift of the lid drops the temperature ten to fifteen degrees and costs about twenty minutes. There is nothing to check.

Swaps and add-ins

Add mushrooms and pearl onions.

Last hour. Turns it into something close to a bourguignon.

Thicken it into gravy.

A cornstarch slurry stirred in at the end.

Make it an appetizer.

Toothpicks and a bowl of the sauce for dipping.

Add a splash of red wine.

Half a cup replacing some broth.

Tips for success

Cut the cubes evenly. Mixed sizes means some are tender and some are tough.
Lid off at the end concentrates the sauce. Fifteen minutes makes a real difference.
Stew meat is the right buy. It's already cubed and it's the cheapest option. No reason to pay more.
Drop in a liner before anything else. Smooth it against the sides and fold the edges over the rim. When you're done, lift it out and throw it away — the crock never needs scrubbing.

Finish it right

Fresh chopped parsley.

Brown beef in brown sauce needs something green.

A teaspoon of red wine vinegar in the sauce.

Sharpens six hours of flat savory into something with an edge.

Cracked black pepper.

Generously, at the table.

Serve it over

Mashed potatoesRiceEgg noodlesCrusty breadOn toothpicks as an appetizer

Tomorrow night

Beef and noodle soup.

Add broth, noodles and vegetables.

Steak and cheese subs.

Chopped, on a roll with provolone.

Beef pot pie.

Thicken, pour into a crust, bake.

Beef hash.

Fried with potatoes until crisp.

Keeping it

Fridge

Airtight, up to 4 days.

Freezer

3 months. Freezes very well.

Reheating

Low with a splash of broth.

Questions people ask

Recipe card