My boyfriend saw what I was cooking and said, “What is this, the “Hungry Man” edition of Budget Bytes? 😆 What can I say, this pandemic has me craving comfort food! And for some reason, Salisbury Steak has been on my mind for weeks. So I set to work putting together a super simple version of Salisbury Steak, smothered with a mushroom and onion gravy, perfect for serving over a hot bed of fluffy mashed potatoes. Add a little something green (peas, in this case), and you have a classic “meat and potatoes” comfort meal.
It’s funny because the very first time I ever had Salisbury Steak was in a frozen TV dinner in the 1980’s. So, this kind of is a Hungry Man edition of Budget Bytes. :P
What is Salisbury Steak?
If you weren’t as lucky as I was to experience Salisbury Steak for the first time as a frozen TV dinner in the 80’s (read: sarcasm), then let me tell you a little about this classic comfort food. It’s a bit like a mini-meatloaf or big, flat meatball. It’s a mixture of ground beef and seasonings, plus a little breadcrumbs and egg to keep it all moist and tender. It’s usually cooked in a skillet and smothered with gravy. The dish gets its name from Dr. Salisbury, who recommended a version of this dish in the late 19th century as a part of his meat-centric diet (read more on Wikipedia).
What to Serve with Salisbury Steak
The mushroom and onion gravy made with this Salisbury Steak is so delicious that you definitely want some sort of starch to soak it up. I served mine with fluffy mashed potatoes, but you could also spoon it over hot rice. Or, just serve with some crusty bread so sop up the gravy from your plate.
I really suggest having a vegetable or two on the side as well. Definitely something green, like the peas shown in my photos, or roasted broccoli. As a second vegetable, I’d probably go with something orange, like roasted carrots. Roasted Asparagus and Tomatoes would also make a great, colorful side to Salisbury Steak. With my leftovers, I added a scoop of sauerkraut on top and that was an AMAZING combination.
How are the Leftovers?
AWESOME. We reheated leftovers of this dish in the microwave and happily gobbled them up. Your leftovers should keep for about 4 days in the refrigerator. And while I haven’t tested freezing this one, this is definitely a dish that I would normally have frozen, if we hadn’t eaten it so fast. The gravy may separate a little upon thawing and reheating, as many flour thickened sauces do, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad and won’t be noticed if it’s mixed right into your mashed potatoes.
What Percent Fat Beef Should I Use?
You can use any type of ground beef for this recipe. If you use a higher fat ground beef, like 15% fat, the extra fat will be absorbed by the breadcrumbs and make the Salisbury Steak extra tender. If you use a more lean ground beef, like 7% fat, your Salisbury Steak will be a little more firm, but will be kept moist by the egg and breadcrumbs.
What Kind of Mushrooms Should I Use?
I used Baby Bella mushrooms because they give the gravy a wonderful color and they’re quite affordable at Aldi. If you have a limited selection or Baby Bella mushrooms are too expensive in your area, regular button mushrooms can be used instead. Your gravy may be slightly lighter in color when using white button mushrooms.
Salisbury Steak with Mushroom Gravy
Servings 4Ingredients
- 1 yellow onion, divided ($0.32)
- 1 lb. ground beef ($5.15)
- 1/2 cup breadcrumbs ($0.13)
- 1 large egg ($0.23)
- 2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce, divided ($0.05)
- 1 tsp Italian seasoning ($0.10)
- 1/2 tsp salt ($0.02)
- 1/4 tsp pepper ($0.03)
- 1 Tbsp cooking oil ($0.04)
- 8 oz. mushrooms ($1.69)
- 2 Tbsp butter ($0.26)
- 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour ($0.02)
- 1.5 cups beef broth* ($0.20)
- salt and pepper to taste ($0.05)
Instructions
- Finely mince about ½ cup of the onion and slice the remainder of the onion. The minced onion will go in the ground beef mixture, the rest will be used for the gravy.
- Add the ground beef, minced onion, breadcrumbs, egg, 1 Tbsp of the Worcestershire sauce (the remainder will go in the gravy), Italian seasoning, salt, and pepper to a large bowl. Use your hands to mix the ingredients together until they are evenly combined. Divide the mixture into four equal parts, and shape each into a flattened oval.
- Add the cooking oil to a large skillet and heat over medium. Once the skillet is hot, add the shaped beef patties and cook for about 5 minutes on each side, or until they are well browned on each side. Transfer the cooked patties to a clean plate.
- While the beef patties are cooking, slice the mushrooms. After removing the beef from the skillet, add the sliced mushrooms and the remaining sliced onion along with a pinch of salt and pepper. Continue to cook the mushrooms and onions over medium until they are soft. Allow the moisture released from the onions and mushrooms to help you dissolve any browned bits off the bottom of the skillet as you stir.
- Once the mushrooms and onions have softened and most of the moisture has evaporated off the bottom of the skillet, add the butter and flour. Continue to stir and cook for about two minutes. The flour and butter will form a paste and begin to coat the bottom of the skillet.
- Add the beef broth and one tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce to the skillet. Stir to dissolve the flour into the broth, making sure to dissolve any flour that is stuck to the bottom of the skillet. Allow the broth to come up to simmer (still over medium heat), stirring often. Once it reaches a simmer, it will thicken into a gravy.
- Once the gravy is simmering, add the beef patties back to the skillet with the broth, mushrooms, and onions. Spoon the gravy over top, and continue to simmer the beef in the gravy for an additional five minutes. Taste the gravy and adjust the salt and pepper to your liking.
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How to Make Salisbury Steak – Step by Step Photos
Mince about ½ cup of one yellow onion, and slice the rest of the onion. The minced portion will go IN the Salisbury Steaks, the sliced portion will go into the gravy. If you have a small onion, you’ll probably mince about half and slice half. If you have a larger onion, you’ll mince about ¼ of the onion and slice the remaining ¾ onion.
Add 1 lb. ground beef, the minced onion, one large egg, ½ cup breadcrumbs, 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce, 1 tsp Italian seasoning, ½ tsp salt, and ¼ tsp pepper to a bowl.
Use your hands to combine the ingredients until they are evenly mixed. Divide the mixture into four equal pieces, then shape them into flattened ovals.
Heat 1 Tbsp cooking oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Cook the shaped patties in the hot skillet for about five minutes on each side, or until they are well browned on each side. Remove the cooked patties to a clean plate.
While the beef patties are cooking, slice 8 oz. mushrooms.
After removing the cooked beef from the skillet, add the sliced onion and mushrooms. Add a pinch of salt and pepper, then continue to cook the onions and mushrooms over medium heat until they have softened. Allow the moisture released from the onions and mushrooms to help dissolve any browned bits from the bottom of the skillet.
Once the mushrooms and onions have softened and most of the moisture has evaporated from the skillet, add 2 Tbsp butter and 2 Tbsp all-purpose flour. Continue to stir and cook over medium heat for about 2 minutes more. The flour and butter will form a paste and begin to coat the bottom of the skillet.
Add 1.5 cups beef broth and another 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce to the skillet. Stir and cook over medium heat, dissolving the flour into the broth. When the broth reaches a simmer, it will thicken into a gravy.
Return the beef patties to the skillet with the gravy and spoon the gravy over top.
Continue to let the patties simmer in the gravy for another five minutes.
Taste the gravy and adjust the salt and pepper if needed.
Serve with mashed potatoes and peas for a classic comfort meal!
Can’t say enough good things about this recipe, been making it regularly for a year or so now and my husband always comments on how it’s one of his favourites. One note: these aren’t really good as leftovers in my opinion, but it isn’t hard for us to finish them all in one go ;3
Could this be adapted for a slow cooker? Although excellent I like to come home on busy weeknights an have dinner ready to go.
Although you didn’t ask me, I would say yes. As always you will sacrifice texture, seriously. My suggestion would be to prep this meal the night before–it will then take only about 15-20 minutes to cook. While you could do the meat in the slow cooker, you would still have to spend time on the sides. Peel and soak the potatoes–if you dice smaller, they will cook faster–10 minutes in boiling water, and frozen peas take even less–only a couple of minutes to boil. So you might as well cook up the hamburger steaks and mushrooms fresh at the same time. While not in the recipe, I add a splash of red wine (2-4 Tablespoons) to the pan sauce. I don’t care for the Italian seasoning in this dish, just plenty of garlic. If you still want to do this in the slow cooker, I’d cut the potatoes in large pieces and cook them with the meat, mushrooms, and sauce instead of trying to mash them. The frozen peas will still take only a couple of minutes in a sauce pan.
When I was in elementary school, this dish showed up often in our school hot lunches, but Beth’s version is tastier and more sophisticated. It was also one of the very first frozen meals back in the early 50s–no question this is better.
This recipe was excellent. I believe the Better Than Bouillon added a nice flavor. This one impressed by wife and kids.
Delightful and absolutely fulfilling (emphasis on full) BUT my rating comes with a CAVEAT because I made a couple minor changes. First off I didn’t have breadcrumbs handy so I used oatmeal (a friend uses this substitution regularly in her meatloaf, I used the same amount as called for In the recipe*) and I’m not a big fan of Italian seasoning so I cut the amount in half and made up the difference in garlic powder (the gravy is also really flavorful so I definitely did not miss that quarter tsp).
*The oatmeal will look questionable mixed in and some will be visibly fried a little on the outside when you cook the steaks but when it is all done the texture was perfect and the last five minutes simmering covered up anything that didn’t look perfect. You could probably food process the oats if you are ultimately concerned about texture or presentation.
I made roasted broccoli in the oven and got some microwaved mashed potatoes from the cooler section as a shortcut but I definitely see myself making my own in the future so that way I have the full experience. Hungry man doesn’t have a thing on BudgetBytes 😊
We LOVED this dinner!! I’d never had Salisbury steak before as it always seemed to be some gross school lunch no one wanted to eat but this was amazing and the gravy was amazing and I can’t wait to have it again.
Taste was yummy but I found the steaks a little tough? I used a medium fat ground beef and followed the recipe as written. Not sure if I oversized/squished them into balls too much or what :/. But flavor was nice enough.
This was super yummy, and not too difficult to make. I guess my stove runs hot because I started the patties on medium heat and they browned too quickly and started to burn, so I switched to a medium low heat to finish cooking and was able to save them. The gravy was awesome and really flavorful. My first time making scratch gravy and it was so easy! This will definitely be a repeated recipe 👍
One of my boyfriend’s favorite dinners. He loves when I make this.
1 of my favorite recipes ♡
I just made this for tonight’s dinner – it is exactly what I remember having growing up, My mom was an amazing cook, it was like having a taste of home, again. I even doubled the recipe – I like to cook big so we have leftovers or I freeze a couple servings. I made with egg noodles and butter/brown sugar carrots. My husband is in for a treat tonight!