Ree Drummond’s Chicken Fried Steak (Throwback) | The Pioneer Woman | Food Network

Ree’s classic Chicken Fried Steak is the ultimate comfort food — crispy, golden and smothered in creamy gravy. This hearty Southern favorite from The Pioneer Woman is simple to make and sure to become a family favorite for weeknight dinners.
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Take one sassy former city girl, her hunky rancher husband, a band of adorable kids, an extended family, cowboys, 3,000 wild mustangs, a herd of cattle and one placid basset hound and you have The Pioneer Woman. The Pioneer Woman is an open invitation into Ree Drummond’s life: The award-winning blogger and best-selling cookbook author comes to Food Network and shares her special brand of home cooking, from throw-together suppers to elegant celebrations. The series, set against the incredible story of life at home on the range, is the next best thing to actually sitting on a stool in Ree’s kitchen.

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Chicken Fried Steak with Gravy
RECIPE COURTESY OF REE DRUMMOND
Level: Easy
Total: 1 hr
Prep: 25 min
Cook: 35 min
Yield: 6 servings

Ingredients:
Chicken Fried Steak:
1 ½ cups whole milk
2 large eggs
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons seasoned salt
Freshly ground black pepper
¾ teaspoon paprika
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
3 pounds cube steak (tenderized round steak)
Kosher salt
½ cup canola or vegetable oil
1 tablespoon butter

Gravy:
⅓ cup all-purpose flour
3 to 4 cups whole milk
½ teaspoon seasoned salt
Freshly ground black pepper
Mashed potatoes, for serving

Directions:
Set up an assembly line: mix milk and eggs in one dish, combine flour, seasoned salt, black pepper, paprika, and cayenne in another, and keep the meat ready in a third. Season each steak with salt and pepper, dredge in flour, dip in milk mixture, then dredge again in flour.

Heat oil and butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Fry the steaks in batches until golden brown, about 2 minutes per side. Drain on paper towels and keep warm.

For the gravy, pour off grease, leaving about ¼ cup in the pan. Whisk in flour to make a roux and cook until golden brown. Gradually whisk in milk, season with salt and pepper, and cook until thickened, 5–10 minutes.

Serve the chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and plenty of creamy gravy for a hearty, comforting meal.

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Ree Drummond’s Chicken Fried Steak | The Pioneer Woman | Food Network

The guys have been working so hard for the last two weeks, getting up at 5:00 am every morning. And while we don’t eat chicken fried steak every day, right now is a time that they really need something that sticks to their ribs. I seasoned this cube steak on both sides with salt and pepper. And then it goes into a seasoned flour mixture. I’ve got some cayenne, paprika, seasoned salt, little salt and pepper. After the flour, it goes into an egg and milk mixture. The reason this is called chicken fried steak is it has a breading on it that resembles fried chicken. It’s kind of confusing to people who aren’t familiar with the dish. They want to know where the chicken is. Okay. Once it’s heavily breaded, you can set it aside. I’ve got some chicken fried steak already frying in a big skillet with oil and a little butter for color. And that’s what brings the cowboys to the kitchen. This really is a great assembly line if you just get it going. You can bread these while the other ones are cooking. Take them out and then it’s ready to put the other ones on. These need to cook for about 2 to 2 and 1/2 minutes per side till they’re nice and golden. Okay, the steak’s all done. The mashed potatoes are in the oven. And now I’m going to make the gravy. You cannot have chicken fried steak without gravy. It’s written in a law somewhere. So, I started by draining off most of the oil from the pan where I cooked the meat. And I’m sprinkling in the seasoned flour that I used to bread the steak. It’s really difficult to give a precise recipe for gravy because there’s so much eyeballing going on. You just add a little grease, sprinkle on a little flour, stir it together. Basically, you want to add enough flour into the pan that the mixture is more of a paste and doesn’t have that greasy, oily appearance. So, I’m going to grab some milk. Whole milk, please. You can’t make gravy with skim milk, guys. I’m sorry. I’m going to turn up the heat just a bit and then whisk the whole time while I pour the milk into the pan. It looks really weird when you first start pouring the milk in. and you’ll become filled with self-doubt. You’ll worry if you’ve messed it up, but just stick with it. And as you’re whisking, listen to this. That sound you hear are the little bits of flavor that were in the bottom of the pan after I cooked the meat. And that’s what makes the gravy delicious. So, you want to scrape all of that up so it becomes part of the gravy. And at this point, it’s just about babysitting the gravy. Never leave your wingman. If you can master the fine art of gravy with chicken fried steak, you can do most things in life. Even if the gravy has plenty of salt, you always need to add more black pepper. There’s not much you can do to chicken fried steak to make it any better than the original. But instead of a big old platter of chicken fried steak, I’m going to do chicken fried steak medallions. I’m also going to serve mini biscuits with them. It’s just kind of a fun little spin on the chicken fried steak theme. And you don’t have to have a huge plate full of chicken fried steak, which is kind of difficult to put down, let’s face it. Okay, so I’m making the seasoned flour for the chicken fried steak first. And it’s just flour, salt, pepper, paprika, and cayenne pepper. And when you’re seasoning flour for chicken fried steak or any breading, you definitely want to make sure you add enough salt. And in fact, I’ve got some seasoned salt here. So, it kind of gets salt from a couple of different directions. Chicken fried steak. Girls, how would you describe it? It’s a comfort food. It is the ultimate comfort food and it’s definitely one of those things you can only eat about once every three months because it’s it’s very filling, but it’s just a country classic. So, the first thing I’m going to do is bread the meat. So, I have a little assembly line. For the chicken fried steak medallions, I used cube steak, which is the regular kind of steak. Cube steak is round steak that has been tenderized twice. It goes through the tenderizer and then you turn it and tenderize it again. You can buy it in the supermarket already tenderized. So instead of big huge pieces, I cut these cute little medallions. So here’s how the process for breading goes. Paige. Oh, first sorry. I need to season the meat itself. Even though it’s going into the seasoned flour and I’ll just do a quick little job here, but ideally season it on both sides. So you take a medallion and it’s dry, wet, dry. So it goes into the seasoned flour and then shake it off. Do a quick dunk into the egg and milk mixture. It’s just egg beaten with milk and then it goes back into the seasoned flour. And that is how you get that kind of thick breading on chicken fried steak. It is a very messy messy process, but you just have to embrace it and appreciate. Okay, so I got two pieces of the round steak breaded. I’m going to keep going until all of this is done. So, I have kind of a big skillet. You can use an iron skillet or a non-stick skillet. Either one works. And I have a mixture of vegetable oil and butter because that allows the oil to get a little bit hotter without smoking up the plates. If it was all butter, it would be smoky and black in here within 2 seconds. So, I’ll just add one batch. Take a look at this page. Kind of lightly breaded. Nothing too heavy. So, I’ll cook it on the first side, flip it over, finish cooking, then I’ll remove the first batch, and do the same thing to the rest. Check it out. Chicken fried steak medallions. But the chicken fried steak is only part of the story. The gravy is really, really important. So, I’m going to show you how to make classic cream gravy for chicken fried steak. So, I’m going to turn the heat off for just a second. And you use the pan drippings, of course. I’m not going to need this much grease. So, I’ll turn the heat back on. And the first thing I’ll do is sprinkle in flour. So, there’s really not a hard and fast formula for the amount of grease and flour. I just usually sprinkle in flour and then start whisking. And basically, you want to have enough flour to turn the mixture into a paste and cook the R usually for a minute or two until it starts to get deeper in color. A lot of people are confused about chicken fried steak and they’re like, “Well, where’s the chicken?” But it’s steak that’s kind of breaded like chicken, so they call it they call it chicken fried steak. All right, so the r looks good. So, I’ve got whole milk and I’m going to start pouring it in, whisking as I go. And it can be a little bit violent, but it’s very important just to keep whisking as you add the milk. And pretty soon it’ll start to get thin. There we go. And then got to season it. Little bit of salt. And don’t be alarmed at what you’re about to witness. Lots of pepper. You got to have a ton of pepper in any cream gravy. So now all you have to do is babysit the gravy. So I think it’s just going to take a couple of minutes or so. Chicken fried steak medallions gravy. Oh, and I forgot made a batch of biscuits. So this is how you serve chicken fried steak. Biscuits and gravy. You can either make a sandwich out of it or you can just do a little kind of plate. You have to open up the biscuits. You cannot put the gravy on a whole biscuit. You have to open them up. Three pieces of chicken fried steak. And then this is what you want to see up close, Paige. Always a big serving spoon. And this is what you call gravy overall. Look at it. And I want you to see the biscuits and the meat underneath. Ah, this is seriously the secret to life. Beautiful Texmex chicken fried steak. Now, this is a little bit risky for me to mess with chicken fried steak because it is such a beloved dish in our family, but it’s really great if you’re in the mood for something a little bit different. I started with the steaks themselves and I had four ribeye steaks. I covered them with plastic wrap and pounded them really thin and then I seasoned them with salt and pepper. So, I’m going to do a breading on the outside of the chicken fried steaks. And that’s just flour with some ancho powder, onion powder, garlic powder, lots of flavor there, and then salt and pepper. And I’ll use a fork to just mix up this flour mixture. I say it’s risky to mess with chicken fried steak because chicken fried steak is a religion in Oklahoma, I’m telling you. But this is so so good and it still tastes like chicken fried steak. All right, that’s the flour mixture for the breading. Now, I have another dish with beaten egg and I’m just going to add milk. So, it’s just a simple egg mixture and whisk those together. And then I have a big skillet where I’m melting butter and oil and it’s nice and hot and ready for the steaks. So the breading assembly line is ready. So I’m going to show you how to do the breading. So grab a steak and I’m going to dredge both sides and then shake off the excess and then quickly dunk it into the egg mixture. And then it goes back into the seasoned flour. and turn it over. And basically, you just want to make sure all of the steak is covered in that seasoned flour. And it’s a really thick breading. All right, that’s one of the steaks all breaded. So, I’m going to get the other ones breaded and go ahead and put them in the skillet to start the cooking process. I just do the same with breading the other steaks. Into the flour, the egg, and back into the flour. And the double dip in the flour means you get a great crispy coating. Okay, that’s all four done. Now I’ll put them in hot olive oil and butter and cook them for about 2 minutes on side one. Flip them over. Give them another 2 minutes on the other side so they’re medium rare. Then take them out to rest. Don’t those steaks just look incredible? Wow. So, this skillet is so hot and so full of flavor. I’m actually going to cook some peppers that are going to go on top of the chicken fried steak. This is definitely not traditional with chicken fried steak. So, I have a mixture of mini peppers that I sliced, pablano peppers that are sliced thin, and then I also sliced up a serrano pepper just to give the whole thing a little bit of heat because the pablanos and the sweet peppers are pretty mild. Okay, I just need to cook these peppers until they’re nice and soft. It’s just going to take a couple of minutes. Okay, look at these peppers. Oh, so much color. They’ve really gotten nice and brown on the edges. So, I’m going to take them out before I make the gravy for the chicken fried steak. So, if there’s enough grease in the skillet, you don’t need to do this. But if the skillet is pretty dry, just add a little bit more butter because I’m going to make a r and you definitely need a little butter or oil to do that. And then I have some plain flour and it just gets sprinkled over the butter or grease in the skillet. And then I’m going to use a whisk to whisk this into a paste. And then I need to cook this rue until it turns pretty golden brown. It is not going to take a lot of time at all. But just look at this rue. It’s kind of the color of caramel. And that is exactly what I’m looking for. Ooh, so much flavor. So now the milk comes in and I’m going to whisk while I pour in the milk. And gravy is such a living breathing thing. And for that reason, it’s really hard to give exact flour and milk amounts. You want to add enough milk that you know it kind of thins out the amount of flour you added. If it gets too thick, you can splash in a little more milk. But that’s what I love about gravy. It’s just so kind of organic and definitely personal. All right, I’m going to season the gravy with a little ancho chili powder as well, just cuz I’m a rebel. I like to live on the edge. And of course, you want to add salt and pepper to the gravy. And you can taste and always add a little bit more later. So, for this stage, I just need to let the gravy heat up and bubble, and that’s going to help it thicken. That’ll just take a few minutes. All right, the gravy is done. I turned off the heat, so serving it is really fun. I’m going to do a very elegant bed of gravy. So, kind of smear it around. And then I’ll grab one of the pieces of steak. And take more gravy and put it on top just because I want to. But I want plenty of that beautiful steak showing too so I’m not totally covering it up. And then I’ll bring these peppers over and I’ll just spear a few with my fork and just scatter them over the top. So beautiful. Now, I’m also going to serve with biscuits because that’s just a natural accompaniment for the chicken fried steak. You can make your own. These are my favorite biscuits. You can even use storebought if you want to. And if you’re any self-respecting country girl, you got to put gravy on top of the biscuit, too. That’s just a little extra. Check this out. TMEX chicken fried steak. That’s what I call comfort food to the max. You have got to make this soon. Salisbury steak in a tasty onion gravy seems like just the ticket. I just mixed together a pound and a half of ground beef. Then added a half a cup of seasoned bread crumbs to bind it all together. Then I added two teaspoons of dry mustard, a crumbled beef bullion cube, four dashes of worstachure sauce, a tablespoon of ketchup, and some salt and pepper. After that, I kneaded the mixture together, formed some oval patties. I’ve got some oil and butter in a hot pan. And I’ll just get the patties going. Now, because the patties begin with ground beef, I want to make sure they’re cooked all the way through. So, I’m going to cook them for about 3 to 5 minutes on the first side. Now, after the patties are fried, I’ll take them out of the pan, and then I’ll make a really yummy sauce. And that’s what makes Salsbury steak so yummy. The patties are done. I took them out of the pan and then I drained off all the grease. Didn’t clean the pan and I threw in a sliced onion and I’ve been cooking that. It’s nice and golden brown. So, I’m going to move into the sauce. I’ll just pour two cups of beef broth right into the pan with the onions. You know, sometimes I call this gravy, but it’s really not a gravy in the traditional sense of the word. It’s more of a sauce and the flavor of the patties really comes through. And then several dashes of worsture sauce. Just eyeball it. And then for a little tang and sweetness, a tablespoon of ketchup. I’d say a heaping tablespoon. And then this is a strictly optional ingredient, but I like to add a little bit of seasoning and browning sauce into the pan. Oo, that’s going to be nice and dark. It really doesn’t do too much except it deepens the color, deepens the flavor a little bit. If you don’t use it, it’ll still be totally delicious. I’m going to let that go a little bit. And to thicken it up a little, I’m going to mix some corn starch with a little beef broth. Just enough to turn it into a paste. My mother-in-law always makes fun of me because I stir things with the measuring spoons I use, but I don’t like to do dishes, so I’m in the habit of dirtying as few things as possible. All right. Now, I’m just going to add a couple of tablespoons of the cornstarch mixture to the sauce. And then I’ll let it cook for just a minute and see what it looks like. The corn starch thickens the sauce, but it also makes it nice and glossy and really beautiful. If it needs more thickening, I can always add more. If the sauce gets too thick, you can splash in a little beef broth. It’s real easy. You can’t mess it up. Okay, this looks perfect. It’s getting nice and thick. So, I’m just going to add a little salt and pepper. And it looks just so good. So pretty. You can give it a taste, adjust the seasonings as you want, but it looks just right. So now I’ll just stick the patties right back into the pan. Nudge them around into the sauce. And then this sauce is so wonderful. I want to spoon it over the tops of the patties. You know, the Salsbury steak I remember had really finely diced onions in the gravy. And if you didn’t like onions, you were kind of out of luck. But I like to slice them big. And that way if a kid doesn’t necessarily like onions, they can easily pick them off. All right, Salisbury steak is done. I’m just going to let them simmer in the pan. The skirt steak meal kit. So, first the marinade for the steak. Half a cup of soy sauce and the same amount of cherry, which makes this steak so good. A little squeeze of honey. A combination of minced garlic and minced ginger. And it is a lot. some crushed red pepper and then a little salt and pepper. And finally, some toasted sesame oil, which is absolutely amazing. There is no flavor like it in the world. Oh, I love the way it smells. All right, so that’s it for the marinade. So, I’m going to get the lid on. Give it a really good shake to make sure all the ingredients are totally mixed together. Now, I’ve got this beautiful skirt steak in a refrigerator container. And you can use a plastic bag if you want, and I’m going to pour about 2/3 of this right over the meat. So, I’ll get the lid on. All right. So, now come the noodles. I’m using udon noodles. And I’m just going to drop them into boiling water. Whoops. Pull the package out. All right. I’m going to let these cook until they’re tender. So, the noodles are cooked and I drained them. And I’m just going to slip them into a plastic bag. And I’ll drizzle in just a little more toasted sesame oil. A little of this goes a long way, so you don’t want to overdo it. And then I’ll seal this bag. And I’ll just kind of smush the noodles around so they’re totally coated in that delicious sesame oil. So, last thing I need to do is make a quick little spice mix that I will need when I cook the meal. And it starts with five spice powder and onion powder, garlic powder, very simple. And then salt and pepper. And then I’ll put the lid on and kind of shake it up. All right, that spice mix looks great. Okay, I’m going to get this show on the road and load up the meal kit so I can take it home. I have a beautiful combination of veggies. Orange bell peppers, zucchini. I cut them into long strips. Some red bell pepper, and green onions that are already sliced and ready to go. A lime that’s going to be for serving. And then the spice mix I just made. And can’t forget about this extra marinade.