Pan Seared NY Strip Steak

The easiest way to make steak in a cast iron skillet! NY Strip Steak with easy, buttery shallot sauce is the most delicious date night at home steak method. Pair this with your favorite sides for a delicious, easy steakhouse dinner at home!

Hi! How is your week going? I think the older we get the more we say it, but what a week. We're struggling to stay afloat in a very busy season, and with a lot of in and out, dinners together to reconnect are definitely part of that plan. 

I love a Nice But Very Easy mid-week meal when we're super busy, and this is by far our favorite way to eat steak. We eat it with some kind of roasted veggie that can cook while the steak works, and dinner is DONE in 30 minutes, maybe less. 

Recipe Notes

A few notes on the process: I use a cast iron skillet every single time. No grill, nothing nonstick, and the crust meat gets in cast iron is just SO good. I use butter + oil for flavor and high heat, and kosher salt not pepper. I think pepper can get too spicy/sharp with super hot cooking, but by all means pepper your steak if you're into that.

The sauce here is a very simple shallot sauce cooked in the beef drippings while the steak rests, nothing fancy, and holy flavor it's so good. I've done this with regular onion too and the results are equally delicious. 

Let's steak!

Ingredients

Four ingredients for our beef entree plus sauce. Steak, butter (ok fine and some oil, so five ingredients), shallots, and kosher salt. I used two shallots here, but sometimes I use more because we are onion lovers around here slash Jay eats half of them before we even sit down to eat. 

Recipe Method

Before you cook the steak, let the meat rest out of the fridge for at least 20 minutes so it isn't super cold when you start to cook it. I do one steak for two people and that's more than enough, but if you are cooking for more people just be sure that your skillet is large enough to hold the steaks you're cooking with a few inches between each piece of meat so that they'll still get nice and crispy at the edges.

While the steak is resting, preheat a cast iron skillet to medium-high (my stove has a 10-point dial and I preheat at a 6) with the oil. Sprinkle the meat with salt very liberally on both sides. 

When the skillet is hot, add the butter and swirl it around in the skillet until it foams and sizzles. 

Add the steak to the hot skillet and leave it alone while it cooks. You'll flip it one time and that's it, no moving it around or messing with it.

Pro Tip: If the steak doesn't sizzle A LOT when you add it to the skillet, take it immediately out and let the pan preheat for a few minutes longer. Because this is a quick cook we need the skillet hot enough to get a really good sear on the steak!

While the steak is cooking, peel and thinly slice the shallots if you didn't do that in advance. 

For a steak that is about an inch thick I do 5 minutes on the first side, flip the steak, then do another 3 minutes before taking it out to rest. This yields steak that is somewhere between medium and medium-rare, which is perfect for us.

If you'd like to get all sorts of specific (not my style, but yes it's a thing that real cooks do), you can use a candy thermometer or a meat thermometer to take the inside temp of the steak. 140F is usually nice for a medium-rare situation; the meat will continue to increase in temp a bit to about 145F as it rests.

Resting The Steak

Remove the steak to a plate to rest for several minutes and turn the heat down on the skillet to low. 

Buttery Shallot Sauce for Steak

Add the shallots to the skillet and stir them to cook and pick up the beef drippings from the skillet. They'll cook and brown and soften and be the BEST topping for the steak. 

After about 10 minutes, thinly slice the steak and marvel at how perfect it is. The juices shouldn't run out, but if you lose any try to reserve them and put them in the skillet with the shallots.

The key is to rest the steak so the juices redistribute (they're essentially boiling inside the steak so if you cut the steak when it's super hot they'll run out of the steak and it'll end up dry and flavorless), so the meat will be warm/room temperature but the steak will be juicy and delicious. 

Spoon the shallots over the steak, and we're good to go. 

So simple, so flavorful. Of course you can top the steak however you like, but I love the simplicty of using the pan drippings since you have to let the steak rest anyway. You can add some beef stock or Worcestershire sauce to the shallots if you're feeling fancy, but they are honestly so good without anything added to it.

What to Serve with NY Strip Steak

I love this steak on its own with some no-knead bread and a quick green salad, but if I'm making this on the weekend I love making slightly heavier side dishes! A steakhouse dinner at home situation is just so fun to me.

• Baked mashed potatoes (make them in advance!)
• Crispy garlic butter smashed potatoes
• Broiled lemon green beans
• Roasted carrots with bacon
• Brown mushroom rice

Have some steak for dinner this week! Chicken needs a break. I hope you love this!

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This recipe was originally published in September 2017 and has been updated with better instructions and more tips and tricks.