The BEST Beef Tips and Gravy Recipe - Top Recipes (2024)

FAQs

How do you thicken beef tips and gravy? ›

Add in the beef and bay leaf. To thicken the gravy, remove 1 cup of broth from the pan and place in a bowl. Add the cornstarch to the bowl and stir until smooth. Pour the broth-cornstarch mixture back into the pan and stir.

If your gravy tastes great but it lacks a little depth, add an umami flavor boost. Umami flavors are deeply savory and feel round on the palate. Spruce up the gravy with a splash of Worcestershire sauce or soy sauce (if the gravy isn't already too salty, that is).

Sirloin or Tenderloin cuts are best for making beef tips on the stove top as they don't require as much low and slow cooking to render down and tenderize. Tender Cuts of Meat: Sirloin, Flank, Ribeye, Tenderloin. Tougher Cuts of Meat: Chuck Roast, Rump Roast, Brisket. (Best suited for slow cooking.)

Browning adds more flavor to the gravy and gets rid of the raw flour taste. You're basically making a roux. We find that a flour-based gravy holds up better and reheats better later, which is why we tend to prefer using flour over cornstarch to make gravy unless we have a guest who is eating gluten-free.

Flour is a natural thickening agent and can be incorporated into your sauce with a few different methods (for a gluten-free option, you can also use arrowroot flour or a gluten-free flour blend like Bob's Red Mill's 1 to 1 or King Arthur's Measure for Measure). One way to thicken gravy with flour is by making a slurry.

Butter. Powdered gravy mixes are heavy on the salt and meat flavor. Their flavor is usually pretty aggressive and their mouth feel comes from starch, not fat or collagen. A big pat of butter will temper the harsh flavor and provide richness.

However, if you cook thick-fibered meat (like steak tips) beyond medium to 140 degrees, the shrinking muscle fibers will squeeze out moisture, making the meat dry and tough. Thus, aim for the sweet spot with long-fibered meats like steak tips by cooking them to medium (between 130 and 140 degrees).

Chuck meat is your best bet for beef stew, but it's also a pretty tough cut so it needs time to break down and become tender. Rush the cooking process and the beef will be tough and chewy. Follow this tip: For really tender meat, cook the stew low and slow, for approximately two hours.

Boiling meat already helps make tough cuts more tender. These cuts of beef often have elastin and collagen marbled within, making it sinewy and chewy. Cooking it with moist heat — such as by boiling or simmering — helps to slowly break down this connective tissue without drying out the meat altogether.

Do you cook beef before adding to stew? ›

You should never throw your raw cubes of beef into the stew pot. You must sear the cubes first in a pan to brown them and begin building that rich flavor. It's important not to brown them too lightly—sear them until there's a dark crust on each side of the meat cubes.

Whisk a teaspoon of flour in a little cold water to make a slurry, then stir into the stew as it's cooking. Don't add dry flour directly to the stew as it may clump. After adding the slurry, bring the stew to boil. This will cook out the flour taste and allow the starch to swell.

this is the easiest hack for thickening soups stews sauces and it does it instantly. instead of a roux or flour use cornstarch or arrowroot . equal parts water to cornstarch and arrowroot. mix that up and then you add it to simmering sauce or whatever.

The most readily available sauce-thickener is flour. For a too-thin sauce, try adding a slurry (equal parts flour and water, whisked together) or beurre manie (equal parts softened butter and flour, kneaded together to form a paste)—both are ideal thickeners for rich and creamy sauces, such as steak sauce recipes.