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These 4-Ingredient Slow Cooker Beef Cubed Steaks cook low and slow in a creamy onion gravy until fork-tender, with no browning or chopping required. Just add the four ingredients to the Slow Cooker and let it do the work. You’re going to love them over mashed potatoes, egg noodles, or rice on busy nights.
Why You’ll Love It
- Just four ordinary ingredients — cube steaks, canned cream of mushroom soup, dry onion soup mix, and beef broth.
- No browning or chopping — put everything in the Slow Cooker and let time do the heavy lifting.
- Tender beef and rich gravy — the cube steaks turn tender while the sauce becomes savory gravy for mashed potatoes, egg noodles, or rice.
- Feeds four comfortably — stretch it with potatoes and a green vegetable to make it go a little farther.
Ingredient Notes
Cubed steaks are usually tenderized cuts of beef, often round steak, with that little dimpled pattern pressed into the meat. Don’t confuse them with cube-shaped steak pieces—easy enough mistake, especially if you’re trying to order groceries on your phone while somebody is asking where their other soccer cleat is.
For the condensed cream of mushroom soup, use the regular canned kind, undiluted. Any comparable condensed cream of mushroom soup should do the job, though.
The dry onion soup mix adds a lot of salt and beefy onion flavor, so I wait until the end before adding any extra salt. Sometimes it needs a little black pepper. Sometimes it doesn’t need a blessed thing. Taste it first—this is not an area for guesswork.
Low-sodium beef broth is a smart choice here since the soup mix is already fairly salty. I’ve used regular beef broth when that was all I had, and it was fine, but I did not add another grain of salt. Not one. I may be casual about plenty of things, but salty gravy can ruin a perfectly decent evening.
Ingredients
- 2 pounds raw beef cubed steaks
- 1 (10.5-ounce) can condensed cream of mushroom soup
- 1 (1-ounce) packet dry onion soup mix
- 1 cup beef broth, low sodium if you can find it
Instructions
Place the raw beef cubed steaks in the bottom of a 4- to 6-quart Slow Cooker. Try to arrange them in a single layer, though a little overlapping is completely fine. Mine never fit in a perfect little arrangement, and I have made peace with that. This is dinner, not a geometry assignment.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the condensed cream of mushroom soup, dry onion soup mix, and beef broth until the mixture is mostly smooth. There may be a few small lumps from the soup, and that is all right—it will sort itself out as it cooks. I used to stand there whisking like I was making hollandaise, which was silly. Mostly smooth is plenty.
Pour the soup mixture evenly over the cube steaks, making sure every piece is coated or at least touching some of that liquid. Don’t leave a steak high and dry on the edge of the slow cooker; it deserves gravy too. We are civilized people.
Cover the slow cooker with the lid and cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours, or on HIGH for 3 to 4 hours, until the cube steaks are very tender and easy to cut with a fork. LOW is my preference if I’m home in time to get it started in the morning. The flavor just seems a little more settled that way—though I have absolutely used HIGH on days when I forgot until noon. Happens to the best of us. Or the most distracted of us, which is probably closer to the truth.
Once the steaks are tender, gently stir the gravy around them to combine the juices and any fat that has risen to the surface. Taste the gravy, then add a small pinch of salt and some black pepper only if you think it needs it. The onion soup mix does a lot of the seasoning already, so go easy. You can always add more; you cannot un-salt gravy, despite claims to the contrary.
Serve the cubed steaks hot with plenty of gravy spooned over mashed potatoes, egg noodles, or steamed white rice. Add peas, green beans, or a quick salad if you’re feeling organized. Warm dinner rolls or crusty bread are awfully good for swiping through the extra gravy, and I highly recommend not pretending otherwise.
Variations
Add about a cup of sliced fresh mushrooms scattered over the cube steaks before you pour on the sauce.
You can also tuck thick-sliced onions or baby carrots around the meat to make it feel a little more like a full one-pot supper. They soften in the gravy and take on that oniony beef flavor. I tried adding potatoes once, thinking I had outsmarted the entire concept of side dishes. They cooked, technically, but they got a little too soft for my liking and the gravy turned heavier than I wanted. Not a disaster, just not the revelation I had pictured at 7:15 that morning.
For a richer gravy, stir in 1 to 2 tablespoons of butter or a splash of heavy cream right before serving. A teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce or soy sauce can go into the soup mixture before cooking too, if you want a deeper, darker flavor. I don’t always add it—I like the plain version best—but it is nice when the weather turns cold.
If the gravy seems thinner than you prefer, whisk 1 tablespoon cornstarch with 2 tablespoons cold water and stir that into the slow cooker during the last 30 minutes of cooking on HIGH. Make sure the water is cold, by the way. I once used warm water because I was impatient, and it made little cornstarch blobs that looked like sad dumpling scraps. We ate it anyway. Family is forgiving when there are mashed potatoes involved.
Storage & Reheating
Let leftovers cool and get them into a shallow covered container within two hours. They’ll keep in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 days. The gravy usually thickens up overnight, which is not a problem—sometimes I think it tastes even better the next day, although I also believe nearly every savory meal tastes better the next day, so perhaps I am biased.
Reheat the cube steaks and gravy in a covered skillet over low heat, adding a small splash of beef broth or water if the sauce has gotten too thick. You can also microwave individual portions until steaming hot, stopping once to stir the gravy around. Don’t blast it until the steak turns into shoe leather. Cube steak has already worked hard enough.
We’ve eaten these leftovers over toast once or twice, which sounds a little old-fashioned because it is. But it is good.
Final Notes
There is a particular comfort in knowing dinner is quietly taking care of itself while the rest of the day does whatever nonsense it has planned. You come home, lift the lid, and there it is: tender beef, gravy, that familiar oniony smell filling up the kitchen. No last-minute scrambling. No stack of pans. Just dinner waiting like it had faith you’d eventually get yourself together.
I don’t make this every week. I probably could, but then somebody would complain, because that is what families do. Still, it stays in my regular rotation—especially when the evenings get dark too early and I find myself thinking about old kitchens and all the ordinary meals that somehow become the ones you remember.
Serve it with potatoes. Use the good spoon for the gravy. Let everybody have seconds if they want them. And if there is a little left in the slow cooker afterward, well… tomorrow’s lunch is handled.
4-Ingredient Slow Cooker Beef Cubed Steaks
Ingredients
- 2 pounds raw beef cubed steaks
- 1 10.5-ounce can condensed cream of mushroom soup Use undiluted regular condensed soup.
- 1 1-ounce packet dry onion soup mix
- 1 cup beef broth Low sodium if available.
Instructions
- Place the raw beef cubed steaks in the bottom of a 4- to 6-quart slow cooker, arranging them in a single layer if possible.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the condensed cream of mushroom soup, dry onion soup mix, and beef broth until mostly smooth.
- Pour the soup mixture evenly over the cubed steaks, making sure each piece is coated or touching the liquid.
- Cover and cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours, or on HIGH for 3 to 4 hours, until the cubed steaks are very tender and easy to cut with a fork.
- Gently stir the gravy around the steaks, taste it, and add a small pinch of salt and some black pepper only if needed.
- Serve the cubed steaks hot with plenty of gravy spooned over mashed potatoes, egg noodles, or steamed white rice.