While it may be an old-school classic, beef stroganoff is the comfort food we take seriously. With its rich sauce deepened in flavor with red wine, Dijon mustard, and finished with tangy sour cream, beef stroganoff is the dish to keep in your back pocket when you need a reliable, cozy weeknight dinner. Simple to make with many pantry staples, this is the dinner to reach for on those nights when you want your whole kitchen to be filled with the embracing aromas of a home-cooked meal, with very little effort required. Leave disappointment and frustration for outside the kitchen—follow these tips to get the best result possible and guarantee only joy at the dinner table:
The best cut of beef for beef stroganoff:
We use skirt steak in this recipe, but flank steak is also a great option here. As well as being cheaper than a sirloin, these are relatively thin cuts of beef, which you can cook for longer without the risk of overcooking. Whichever cut you choose, the beef should be cooked with a shock method, which means high heat for a short time. Get that pan hot with the oil shimmering and cook for only a minute on each side for an almost rare steak with an aggressive golden brown sear on the exterior. When you return the meat into the sauce, it’ll keep cooking until medium-rare.
The secret to the best beef stroganoff sauce:
You can definitely use cream if that’s what you have handy, but adding sour cream at the end of the cooking really makes the sauce go from densely rich and full-bodied to tangy and silky while not losing those hearty flavors. To prevent it from breaking, temper it before adding at the end so that you don’t have a split sauce. Tempering is a way to carefully cool or heat up an ingredient. In this case, sour cream is very prone to breaking and curdling when added directly to a very hot scene, so warming it up before mixing some of the sauce first will ensure that your end result is a silky smooth sauce.
What to serve with beef stroganoff:
This recipe is paired with the classic extra wide egg noodles, which are incorporated into the sauce so that the noodles can absorb that glossy sauce. That being said, if you’re looking for alternate serving ideas, white rice, some roasted vegetables, or even cauliflower rice (like we do in our keto stroganoff) would all be great ideas.
Made this recipe? Let us know how it went in the comments below!
