Beef
Pepper Steak
Peppery strips of beef with sweet bell peppers. Ready faster than a roast.
Pepper steak is a Chinese-American restaurant staple, and the name is doing double duty — it's peppers, and it's pepper. Black pepper is the lead flavor here, not a background seasoning.
Because it uses strips rather than a whole roast, it's much faster than the pot roasts. Five to six hours on LOW rather than nine.
The trick with any sliced beef is cutting across the grain. Look at the direction the muscle fibers run and cut perpendicular to them. It makes the difference between tender and chewy.
Why you'll love it
Faster than a pot roast.
Five to six hours, or under three on HIGH.
Black pepper leads.
Genuinely peppery, which is what separates it from every other beef dish here.
Peppers and onions built in.
No separate vegetable to cook.
Takeout flavor, weeknight effort.
It tastes like a restaurant dish.
What's already in the packet
Soy and beef base with black pepper as the lead ingredient, plus a thickener for a glossy sauce.
Choose your setting
LOW · 5–6 hours
Low and slow gives collagen time to melt and flavors time to build. It is the setting this recipe was written for.
HIGH · 2½–3 hours
For when you started late. It gets dinner done, but the texture is better on LOW.
Done at 145°F
Strips are safe at 145°F and stay tender. Chuck strips can go higher.
You'll Need
- 2 lbs Beef strips (pick one below)
- 1½ cups Water or beef broth
- 1 packet Cook SLO Pepper Steak
- 3 cups Bell peppers and onion, sliced
Pick your beef
2 lbs
Flank steak, in strips
2 lbs
Sirloin, in strips
2 lbs
Beef stew meat
Roasts 145°F, ground beef 160°F
Add vegetables
Sliced onion (fresh or frozen) at the start, on the bottom; Mixed bell peppers (fresh or frozen) at the start; mushrooms at the start to melt into the sauce, or the last two hours to keep their shape; snap peas (fresh or frozen), water chestnuts and baby corn in the last forty-five minutes.
When to add what
| When | Add | Why |
|---|---|---|
| At the start, on the bottom | Sliced onion (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, to soften into the sauce | Mixed bell peppers (fresh or frozen) | These break down and give their flavour to the pot. Right for a gravy or a fajita, wrong if you want them to hold their shape. |
| 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 45 minutes | Snap peas (fresh or frozen)Water chestnutsBaby corn | This is the one people get wrong. Broccoli added at the start comes out grey and falls apart. Forty-five minutes keeps it bright and firm. |
Two ways to do this
If you're home
Follow the timing table above and add things when they're due.
If you're out all day
Put in at the start as normal: sliced onion (fresh or frozen), Mixed bell peppers (fresh or frozen) and sliced mushrooms (fresh or frozen). These need the full cook anyway.
Add snap peas (fresh or frozen), water chestnuts and baby corn 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
**Served over noodles.** Cook lo mein noodles separately and spoon the glaze from the bottom of the pot over the top. **Do not add dry pasta to the pot for this recipe.** There is only half a cup of liquid — it makes a glaze, not a sauce, and there is nothing for pasta to cook in.
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
Put the beef strips in the crock pot.
Cut across the grain — look at which way the fibers run and cut perpendicular.
- 2
Pour in the water or broth.
A cup and a half.
- 3
Sprinkle the whole packet on top and stir until the powder disappears.
Then add the peppers and onion on top.
- 4
Put the lid on.
Five to six hours on LOW.
Vegetables
Stir well.
The sauce thickens and turns glossy as you work it.
Serve over hot rice.
This sauce is meant to run into rice.
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
Freeze the beef briefly before slicing.
Twenty minutes in the freezer makes thin, even slices far easier.
Add mushrooms.
A pound at the start. Deepens the savory side.
Add snap peas at the end.
Last 20 minutes. Crunch against all the soft.
Make it hotter.
Chili crisp or red pepper flakes at the end.
Tips for success
- Cut across the grain, always. This is the single most important thing in this recipe. Cutting with the grain gives you chewy beef no matter how long you cook it.
- Twenty minutes in the freezer helps. Partially frozen beef slices cleanly. Room-temperature beef tears.
- Peppers at the start, not the end. Restaurant pepper steak has soft sweet peppers, not crunchy ones.
- 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
Extra cracked black pepper.
It's called pepper steak. Fresh-ground pepper at the table is entirely the point.
Sliced green onion.
Sharp and fresh against the savory sauce.
A few drops of sesame oil.
Just a few. It smells like a restaurant kitchen instantly.
Serve it over
Tomorrow night
Pepper steak fried rice.
Chopped, fried with day-old rice and egg.
Beef and pepper subs.
On a hoagie with provolone, broiled.
Rice bowls.
Over rice with cucumber and a fried egg.
Beef lo mein.
Tossed with cooked noodles and extra vegetables.
Keeping it
Fridge
Airtight, up to 4 days
Freezer
3 months. Peppers soften further on thaw.
Reheating
Hot skillet is best — it re-glosses the sauce.
Questions people ask
Recipe card
Pepper Steak
You'll Need
- 2 lbs Beef strips (pick one below)
- 1½ cups Water or beef broth
- 1 packet Cook SLO Pepper Steak
- 3 cups Bell peppers and onion, sliced
Tonight's Plan
- Put the beef strips in the crock pot.
- Pour in the water or broth.
- Sprinkle the whole packet on top and stir until the powder disappears.
- Put the lid on.
Contains soy.
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