Salisbury Steak. Ground beef that is perfectly seasoned and topped with caramelized onions. The perfect comfort food meal.
Friday and Saturday at my house were kind of crazy. I mentioned in my previous posts that my daughter had tubes put in her ears this week, so my mom flew into town to help out. All went well with my daughter, and my mom planned to fly out Friday evening. Well, Friday morning her flight was cancelled. She changed flights to another flight that evening, and that flight was cancelled too. So, the airline rebooked her on a flight that was an hour earlier. I rushed her to the airport and we made it there as the plane was boarding. She ran through the airport and made it in time to get on the plane, and then have that flight cancelled. The next flight was Saturday morning. We live about an hour from the airport. My husband drove back down to pick her up, she came back to our house to sleep, and then Saturday morning he took her back down.
Other non-sense piled up Friday as well, which is fine, those things happen, but we decided that we needed a date night on Saturday to regroup and get some time to relax. We planned to go to a cute little restaurant a fair drive away from us. The sitter came, we got dressed up, and drove out. Since it’s in the middle of no where, I never thought about calling to make reservations. Well, apparently there was some annual beer festival, and all 100 citizens of the town were there. The restaurant said they were booked the entire night. So, we drove 45 minutes south to another restaurant. Again, since we don’t go out much these days, we made a rookie mistake and didn’t call. And again, booked.
By this point in the evening we were getting hungry and fussy. Well, at least I was. So, we went to the next place we saw. A bar with 1 cent beers, a loud band, and bison burgers. Not exactly what I had in mind for our special date night. But, I’ll have to tell you, after a few sips of wine and a couple of fried green beans (pictured below), we were able to laugh. In retrospect, I think it ended up being perfect.
That has next to nothing to do with salisbury steak. I guess I could say something corny like ‘salisbury steak is one of those things that’s pretty ugly, but it’s actually great, kind of like our night’ – but that’s not what I’m going for. However, is is true that salisbury steak really is ugly, but when spiced just right, it’s a perfect comfort food so no one cares what it looks like. Put it with some mashed potatoes, and all is right in the world.

Salisbury Steak
Ingredients
Beef
- 2 1/4 pounds ground beef
- 2 large eggs beaten
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 3 tbsp worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 2/3 cup dry plain panko breadcrumbs
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 teaspoon seasoned salt
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- 1 tbsp red wine vinegar
- 1-2 tbsp olive oil
Sauce
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 large sweet onions cut into thin slices
- 4 tbsp all purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons dried thyme
- 4 cups beef broth
- 2 tbsp reduced sodium soy sauce
- 2 tbsp ketchup
- 1/2 teaspoon paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon seasoned salt
Instructions
Beef
- In a large bowl, mix together beef with all of the beef ingredients, except for the olive oil.
- Once well mixed, shaped into 8 patties, about 1" thick.
- Heat olive oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add patties and cook until browned on one side, then flip and cook until browned on other side. They do not need to be cooked through.
- Set patties aside as they are cooked.
Sauce
- Heat butter in an extra large sauce pan or dutch oven oven medium-low heat. Add onions. Cook, stirring occasionally, until caramelized (almost translucent yellow, and sweet), about 20 minutes.
- Sprinkle flour over onions and saute for about 1 minute.
- Add thyme, beef broth, soy sauce, ketchup, paprika, and seasoned salt. Sir well.
- Place beef patties into sauce, makes sure they are covered by the sauce.
- Cover pot and cook until the patties are cooked through, about 10-15 minutes.
Notes
Nutrition
Disclaimer: All nutritional information provided on this website is an estimate only and is not guaranteed.
If you enjoyed this salisbury steak, you might also enjoy these other SugarSpicesLife recipes:
Emily’s Baked Ziti
Sloppy Joes
Homemade Hamburgers
Barbacoa Beef (Instant Pot or Slow Cooker)
Items used to make this recipe. Amazon links to the things I recommend:
Calphalon Non-Stick Cookware I find this a worthwhile investment. Cooks well and cleans easily.
OXO Nylon Utensils If you’re going to the above pots, you want to keep them in good shape.