A Test Cook’s Search for the Perfect Weeknight Steak

With a glass of wine in hand, I couldn’t have been more ready. As soon as I started searing, however, I realized that this wasn’t going to be the cute little endeavor I had imagined. 

As is the case in many small apartment kitchens, my stove does not have a vent. I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best. “The best” never materialized—my steak project quickly turned into a grueling test of mental fortitude. Thick smoke stung my eyes. Grease hung in the air. I threw open the windows. Our cat hid in the living room. 

By the time my partner and I sat down to eat, we stared blankly in silence, hair frazzled, both of us smelling like meat and smoke. I woke up that night to the scent of beef fat still lingering in the air. No one slept well, including the cat. 

After that experience, I swore off steak—or at least, cooking it in my apartment. Eventually, I accepted this as my fate. That is, until my editors at Cook’s Country asked me to develop a recipe for minute steaks. I’d never heard of minute steaks before, but considering my recent turmoil, I was pretty excited to try them. 

Minute steaks are thinly pounded cuts of beef seared in a skillet for about a minute on each side. When done well, they should have many of the attributes of thick-cut steaks—glorious browning, juicy meat, and simple seasonings. And their name is no joke: They cook in just a few minutes. Due to their thinness and quick searing time, minute steaks don’t smoke out the kitchen, require a probe thermometer, or need a long resting time after cooking before you can dig in. 

The dish had its heyday in the 1950s, with recipes published in Better Homes & Gardens magazine and popularized in books by James Beard and Betty Crocker, among others. The steaks can be served in a variety of ways, but the classic American approach is to cover them in a rich gravy built from the drippings. Minute steaks are Americana on a plate.  

My research revealed that, traditionally, minute steak recipes call for thinly pounded sirloin, a relatively pricey cut with robust beef flavor. But at some point in the dish’s rise to iconic status, home cooks wanted a cheaper option. So they turned to “cube steak,” a term I repeatedly encountered in parallel with minute steaks. So what’s the difference between the two? 

Cube steaks are thin, inexpensive cuts of beef (often from the top or bottom round) that are jaccarded—machine-processed with tiny, sharp spikes to create a dimpled surface. The process breaks up tough muscle fibers, making the beef less chewy and more pleasant to eat. Cube steak is often braised or fried (as when it’s used for country-fried steak).

Home cooks began substituting cube steak in minute steak recipes, which provided a more economical, pre-tenderized option. The two concepts became intermingled, and now some cooks know minute steak just as cube steak, or vice versa. But does this substitution really work, and can cube steak replace sirloin? It was time to find out.

In the test kitchen, I began by comparing three types of beef that are popular in minute steak recipes—sirloin, cube steak, and top round steak. I seared the steaks in oil in a large nonstick skillet with just kosher salt for seasoning and served them up to my tasters.

As expected, the bold-yet-clean-flavored sirloin steak was the overall winner but still exhibited some chewiness and uneven browning. The top round steaks were slightly tougher and less flavorful but still acceptable. The cube steak came in last. It had a mealy texture and released a large amount of moisture from its craggy exterior, which inhibited browning and made the meat taste bland. 

Next, I tested different tenderizing treatments on all three types of beef. Pounding the steaks with a meat mallet improved the texture and browning of all three samples. We found that pounding with a rolling pin was even more ideal—the long pin requires less arm strength and gains enough velocity to pound the meat extra-thin. All three cuts browned more evenly than the unpounded versions, with more surface contact on the pan; however, the cube steak still released a lot of moisture and was slightly grainy. 

Then, to understand the role of jaccarding, I purchased a hand-jaccarding tool (a home version of the commercial machine). I dappled the sirloin and top round steaks in the same manner as the cube steak before searing all three cuts to compare. As expected, the tool did break down some tough fibers, but it also gave a mealy texture to the meat, similar to the cube steak. Both the sirloin and top round also didn’t brown as deeply after being jaccarded, due to more moisture escaping into the pan from the broken fibers. 

For this dish, pounding steaks in a traditional manner was more successful than using a jaccarding tool. 

Our team was torn at the tasting table. While sirloin did present excellent flavor and texture in all applications, we understood why home cooks valued having more economical options. We ruled out cube steak due to its grainy texture and difficult-to-brown exterior, but we still wanted to make a cheaper cut such as top round steak work as a minute steak. But it was difficult to ignore the chewy fibers and slightly bland flavors of the top round steaks.

A breakthrough happened when I returned to my research to examine various beef treatment techniques. Here, I read about the use of baking soda. Baking soda has the magical ability to make meat more tender, juicy, and flavorful once cooked. This is because baking soda raises the pH on the meat’s surface, altering the electric charge of the muscle proteins and making it more difficult for the proteins to bond (the proteins repel each other slightly, instead of squeezing together when cooked). The gaps between molecules are better able to hold on to moisture, yielding juicer steaks. The higher pH on the surface also accelerates the steak’s Maillard reaction (a chemical reaction of proteins and sugars that leads to browning) while cooking, which enhances the roasty flavor of the meat. 

I tested this theory on thinly pounded top round steaks. To prevent the baking soda from clumping and to ensure even coverage and absorption, I mixed the baking soda with a small amount of water. A pinch of salt gave the liquid the additional advantage of acting as a brine, which helped season the steak throughout. 

After a quick 15-minute soak, I dusted the steaks with a light coating of flour to absorb excess moisture, provide a velvety exterior, and promote browning. After a quick sear on both sides, the steaks were far more juicy, tender, and well-browned than in earlier tests. 

Finally, to confirm that this baking soda treatment worked as a grand equalizer, I put it to the test with various inexpensive cuts of steak (up until this point, I was primarily using top round steaks). I found it worked equally well with other sturdy, cheap cuts, such as bottom and eye round (for cuts with looser fibers, such as chuck, the steak was prone to falling apart after pounding and searing). The baking soda treatment also did not counteract the mealy texture of the cube steak, so we ruled that cut out again. 

Of course, no minute steak is complete without a rich, savory sauce to top it off. While I encountered a vast variety of flavor profiles in my research, I was most drawn to the classic gravy-smothered version reminiscent of TV dinners and Salisbury steaks. 

I sautéed shallot and mushrooms in butter, and—for those nostalgic flavors—added beef broth and Worcestershire sauce. Fresh thyme and Dijon mustard added complexity and brightness. The sauce is built right in the pan with the steak drippings, with a little bit of flour to thicken. 

For a second flavor variation, I drew inspiration from beef stir-fries, which commonly rely on similar protein treatments (in many Chinese dishes, thin slices of top round or sirloin are marinated with baking soda). In this version, I included soy sauce, ginger, oyster sauce, and chicken broth to create a sweet and savory base, before garnishing with fresh scallions. When served with chili crisp and white rice, this variation is reminiscent of my favorite takeout beef dishes. 

Both velvety sauces invigorate the overall dish without overpowering the meat. Underneath, the seared steaks are tender, juicy, and flavorful, thanks to our baking soda solution. The final version of this recipe is one that I have welcomed into my home kitchen, and cooking it without a vent hood is no problem. The cat seems pretty happy about it too.