An 8 oz steak seared in beef tallow, then a sauce built in the same pan from thinly sliced onion, minced cremini and a cup of bone broth, with the steak finishing in it.
French onion soup's flavor, adapted for a steak, with no cheese and no cream anywhere in it. Thirty minutes, and it's written for one.
This recipe and photos were provided courtesy of The Paleo Diet and adapted to use Origin Provision’s 100% Grass-fed and Grass-Finished Beef.
Recipe by Isabella Mead.
You’ve heard of French onion soup, but what about French Onion Steak? We took the hearty flavors of the classic recipe and made a dairy-free mushroom-onion sauce to pour over your favorite seared steak. Just add a couple comforting sides and you’ll have a rich, filling meal.
Many cuts of steak work well with French Onion Steak. For this recipe, we used New York striploin from Origin Provisions, which sells high quality grass-fed beef at an affordable price.
We also used beef tallow as our cooking fat, which provides a unique flavor and potential inflammation-reducing stearic acid (when consumed in moderation). If you don’t have beef tallow, a high-heat cooking oil like avocado or macadamia oil will do.
The recipe: Paleo French Onion Steak
Serves 1 · Prep 6 minutes · Cook 25 minutes · Total 30 minutes
Ingredients
- 8 oz. Origin Provisions New York Strip Steak
- 1 Tbsp. fresh thyme, minced
- 1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
- 2 tsp. garlic powder
- 2 Tbsp. beef tallow, divided
- ½ cup cremini mushrooms, minced
- 1 cup white onion, thinly sliced
- 1 cup beef bone broth
Directions
- Season the steak with the thyme, black pepper and garlic powder.
- Heat 1 tablespoon of the tallow in a cast-iron pan over medium-high heat. Sear the steak about 2 minutes per side, then move it to a cutting board to rest.
- Reduce the heat to low-medium and melt the remaining tallow. Cook the mushrooms and onion until soft, about 10 minutes.
- Add the bone broth and bring to a simmer.
- Return the steak to the pan and simmer 5 minutes.
- Remove the steak, slice it crosswise, top with the sauce and serve.
Quick answers
Can you simmer a steak in sauce without overcooking it? You can, but you have to account for it. A steak that's already at your target doneness will keep cooking in simmering liquid — roughly 20 to 25 degrees over five minutes. The way around it is to sear to a lower internal temperature than you want and let the sauce finish the job: pull it off the sear around 110°F and the simmer carries it to medium rare. The alternative is to rest the steak out of the pan, build the sauce, and pour it over the sliced beef at the end. Lean grass-finished cuts have less margin for this than heavily marbled ones, so a thermometer is worth having.
What is beef tallow and why cook with it? Rendered beef fat. It's stable at high heat with a smoke point around 400°F, so it holds up to searing where butter and most unrefined oils won't, and it's naturally dairy-free. It also tastes of beef, which suits a steak.
Is French onion steak dairy-free? This version is. A classic French onion soup is finished with Gruyère and often butter; here the fat is beef tallow and the body comes from bone broth, with no cheese, butter or cream.
What cut of steak works best here? The recipe calls for an 8 oz strip steak. A top sirloin could also work but be sure to not overcook it and slice cleanly against the grain, which is how the recipe serves it.