Years ago, I was thumbing through a magazine and an article caught my eye about favorite comfort foods. I was shocked to discover that people turned to macaroni and cheese in their hour of need! What? When there is beef stroganoff? Since then I have come to realize that macaroni and cheese has its place. But when I think of comfort food, I think of beef stroganoff! And in an effort to increase votes for beef stroganoff, I am sharing this easy crock pot beef stroganoff with cube steak.
Easy Crock Pot Beef Stroganoff with Cube Steak
While most recipes call for sirloin steak, I realized that the only thing I didn’t like about beef stroganoff is when you run out of beef bites toward the end. So I wanted to create a beef stroganoff recipe that had beef bites all the way to the end. That is where the cube steak comes in!
Cube steak is a very affordable cut of beef. It typically costs just a little more than ground beef so cube steak is a wonderful cut to have on hand for more variety that still fits the every day budget. And as I had come across a sandwich recipe that started with cube steak in the crock pot, that is where our recipe starts.
Easy Crock Pot Beef Stroganoff with Cube Steak is broken into 2 main steps. First the cube steak is placed in the crock pot with the sliced onions, mushroom, and carrots. The best part is that the cube steak doesn’t need to be cut into slices. The cube steak will cook in the crock pot and when it is finished it will breaks into small bites easily. Don’t overcook the cube steak so stick close with the cooking times.
Creamy Sauce for Beef Stroganoff
Once the cube steak is cooked and the onions, mushrooms and carrots are soft, you will add the sauce ingredients close to dinnertime. You can easily add the sauce ingredients to the crock pot! Super simple.
The other thing, that I want in my crock pot beef stroganoff is for the sauce to be as creamy as possible. So I do add an ingredient that I haven’t seen in most recipes. Half n half! Half n half is what is created when you have heavy cream cut with milk. So you can use half heavy cream and half milk. Or if you have whole milk, you can substitute whole milk for the half n half. But don’t overdo it by adding too much half n half or else your stroganoff mixture will taste like milk and not the rich beef flavor you are longing for!
Lastly, I discovered that the noodles are best if they are stirred into the sauce. So once the noodles are cooked, drain and then pour the noodles into the crockpot! Stir the noodles into the beef stroganoff cube steak mixture slightly to coat.
One more tip! I didn’t use the whole bag of noodles. I wanted the noodles to be fully covered without soaking up all the beef stroganoff sauce so I didn’t add all the noodles. And also, I tend to always leave little bits of this and that in food boxes and packets. It may be my overly frugal Scotts-Irish nature, but I always think that less is more…unless its ice cream;)
Check out the handy dandy recipe below! Comment with your FAVORITE comfort food!
Crockpot Beef Stroganoff with Cube Steak
Equipment
- Crock pot
Ingredients
- 1 lb cube steak
- 1 small onion sliced
- 1 package mushrooms sliced
- 1/3 cup carrots sliced (optional)
- 1 3/4 cups beef broth keep 1/4 broth back
- 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 3/4 cup sour cream
- 1 tbsp Dijon style mustard
- 1/3 cup half and half
- 3 tbsp corn starch
- 1 12 oz pkg wide egg noodles Only use 3/4 pkg if using bag of 16oz noodles
- 1/2 tsp salt
- pepper (to taste)
Instructions
- Place the cube steak in the bottom of crock pot. Salt and pepper the cube steak.
- Pour the beef broth and Worcestershire sauce on the cube steak.
- Slice onions, carrots and mushrooms. Add them all to the crock pot.
- Turn crockpot to low, cover and cook for about 4 hours. Meat should break about and mushrooms be soft when it is done.
- 1/2 hour before serving mix cornstarch with 1/4 cup beef broth. Add to crockpot and stir.
- Add in the sour cream, half and half, and mustard and stir.
- Right before serving, cook noodles, drain and add to the crockpot. Stir to cover noodles. Serve!
