Easy Homemade Beef Stroganoff With Top Sirloin

Easy homemade beef stroganoff comes down to three things: beef that is seared quickly rather than stewed, mushrooms and onion cooked until they are properly brown, and sour cream stirred in off the heat so the sauce stays smooth. With top sirloin sliced thin, the whole dish takes about 40 minutes, and most of that is browning.

Top sirloin is a good stroganoff steak because it is tender enough to cook in a minute or two but firm enough to slice cleanly. It is not a stewing cut, so it goes back into the sauce at the very end, just long enough to warm through.

At a glance: serves 4 to 6. Prep 15 minutes, cook about 25 minutes.

Gray Shipley, who runs the farm, put his approach to cooking simply:

“let the flavor do the work and don't try to do too much.”

Gray Shipley

He was not talking about stroganoff, but the advice fits it. A good stroganoff is a short list: browned beef, browned mushrooms, onion, a spoonful of Dijon and some sour cream. It does not need wine, paprika, cream cheese and a can of soup all at once. Brown everything well and the sauce takes care of itself.

Ingredients

• 2 top sirloin steaks, about 1 3/4 to 2 pounds total
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt, plus more to taste
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
• 2 tablespoons neutral oil, such as canola or avocado
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
• 12 ounces cremini or white mushrooms, sliced
• 1 medium yellow onion, thinly sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
• 2 cups low-sodium beef stock
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1 cup full-fat sour cream, at room temperature
• 12 ounces wide egg noodles
• 2 tablespoons chopped parsley or dill, to serve

Instructions

1. Trim any thick fat from the steaks. If you have 20 minutes, put them in the freezer first, since firm beef is much easier to slice thin. Slice across the grain into strips about 1/4 inch thick and 2 inches long. Pat the strips dry and season them with the salt and pepper.
2. Bring a large pot of well-salted water to a boil for the noodles.
3. Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil in a 12-inch skillet over high heat until it shimmers. Add half the beef in a single layer and sear without stirring for about 1 minute, then turn the strips and cook 30 seconds more. They should be browned outside and still pink inside. Move them to a plate and repeat with the remaining oil and beef.
4. Lower the heat to medium and add 2 tablespoons of the butter, the mushrooms and the onion with a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring now and then, until the mushrooms have released their liquid and turned brown and the onion is soft, 8 to 10 minutes. Stir in the garlic for 30 seconds.
5. Sprinkle in the flour and stir for 1 minute. Whisk in the stock, Dijon and Worcestershire, scraping up the browned bits, and simmer until the sauce is thick enough to coat a spoon, 3 to 4 minutes. Meanwhile, cook the noodles according to the package, drain them, and toss them with the remaining tablespoon of butter.
6. Turn the heat to low. Return the beef and its juices to the sauce and stir for about 1 minute, just to warm it through.
7. Take the pan off the heat. Put the sour cream in a bowl, stir in a few spoonfuls of the hot sauce to loosen it, then stir the mixture into the pan. Do not let it boil again. Taste for salt and pepper, and serve over the noodles with parsley or dill.

Add 2 top sirloin steaks to cart

Slicing sirloin for stroganoff

Thin strips are what make this quick. Slice across the grain, so each strip has short fibers and stays tender, and keep the strips about 1/4 inch thick. Thicker strips need longer in the pan and can turn chewy before they brown. Much thinner, and they overcook in seconds. The same slicing rules apply to a stir-fry, and Best Beef Cuts for Stir-Fry, and How to Slice Them shows how to find the grain on different cuts.

Keeping the sour cream smooth

Sour cream curdles if it boils, and it is more likely to split when it goes into the pan cold. Use full-fat sour cream, let it sit out while you cook, loosen it with a little of the hot sauce first, and stir it in off the heat. The flour in the sauce helps hold it together. If you need to reheat the finished dish, warm it gently and do not let it bubble.

Steak or stew meat?

Stroganoff is made both ways. A quick stovetop version like this one uses a tender steak such as top sirloin, which cooks in a minute. Slower versions use chuck stew meat, which needs an hour or more of gentle simmering to turn tender. The two cuts do not swap well: sirloin simmered for an hour turns dry, and chuck seared for a minute stays chewy. Beef Tips vs Stew Meat: What Is the Difference? explains which cut does what.

Instant Pot beef stroganoff

Most Instant Pot beef stroganoff recipes are written for chuck, which needs time under pressure to turn tender. Top sirloin does not, and pressure cooking it in the sauce will make it tough and dry. If you want to use the pot, treat it as a skillet and a noodle cooker, and add the sirloin at the end there too.

Sear the beef in batches on the Saute setting and set it aside. Cook the mushrooms and onion, then add the stock, Dijon and Worcestershire and stir in the noodles with enough extra stock or water to just cover them. Cook at high pressure for about half the boiling time on the noodle package, then release the pressure quickly. Check your cooker's manual, since models vary. Stir the seared beef back in on the Keep Warm setting, thicken with 1 tablespoon of cornstarch mixed into 2 tablespoons of cold water if the sauce needs it, then stir in the tempered sour cream. Leave the flour out of the pressure stage, because a thickened sauce can scorch on the bottom of the pot.

If the sauce is too thin or too thick

Simmer the sauce a minute or two longer before the sour cream goes in, or loosen it with a splash of stock. Why Is My Gravy Thin? covers the causes, and they are the same for a stroganoff sauce.

Food safety

USDA FSIS lists 145 degrees F, followed by a rest of at least 3 minutes, as the safe minimum internal temperature for beef steaks. Strips this thin are hard to check with a thermometer, and seared quickly they are often still pink in the center, which may be below that figure. The choice is yours. If you want them cooked further, let the strips simmer in the sauce a minute or two longer before the sour cream goes in. Refrigerate leftovers promptly and reheat them gently to 165 degrees F, the FSIS figure for leftovers, stirring so the sauce does not split. See the FSIS Safe Minimum Internal Temperature Chart.