Joy the Baker

Homemade Steak Sauce

by 38 Comments

Homemade Steak Sauce

I’m not the meatiest of carnivores.  I’m in it for the toppings.

I’m most interested in a steak when it is topped with a ludicrous amount of A-1 sauce and/or bleu cheese.  Hamburgers with exactly toooo much cheddar cheese.  Yes, please.  I’ll sign up for lobster because of the clarified butter.  And most every East LA taco truck is amazing because of its seasoning, sauce, and salsas.

Join me in saucing just about anything and everything.

My refrigerator is filled with a menagerie of little jars filled with sweet, sour, and spicy sauce concoctions.  Butter too… obviously lots of butter.

Steak is a special occasion in my refrigerator.  Because it’s Summer.  Because I’m experimenting with being a grown-up lady who grills over charcoal.  Because I made a fancy-pants Homemade Steak Sauce…  it’s a very special occasion.  STEAK!

Homemade Steak Sauce

Serving suggestion:  on grilled skirt steak, in abundance, like a BOSS.

Homemade Steak Sauce

The amazing thing about homemade steak sauce is that it’s much more than the sum of its parts.

Sure it’s ketchup and Worcestershire, beef broth, and a surprising amount of instant espresso powder… but it doesn’t taste specifically like any one of these ingredients.  I think it might be a little bit of magic.

Homemade Steak Sauce

Onions and garlic are cooked down with a good amount of fresh parsley.  The smell?  YES!

Once the onion are cooked down we add ketchup, Worcestershire,  beef broth, espresso powder (!!!), salt and pepper.  The mixture simmers away, covered, for about fifteen minutes.

Homemade Steak Sauce

The onions are garlic with be extra soft and tender and the flavors will be mixed and melted into something exactly right!

The espresso powder, even though it’s totally unexpected, adds quite a lot to this sauce.  How to attach words to the espresso powder flavor additions is challenging.  It’s hard to describe.  It adds depth and intrigue.  Umami.  Espresso powder is that special something that, in combination with the other ingredients, makes a sauce that doesn’t taste like coffee.  Weird and perfect!

Homemade Steak Sauce

I grilled these skirt steaks in the rain which I  think adds extra flavor to the meat, and extra bad-assedness to my grilling skills.

Or is it bad-assery?

This sauce is tangy, slightly sweet, earthy, and utterly delicious.  Next time I might add extra heat with crushed red pepper flakes.  It’s also delicious on chicken, grilled vegetables, and leftover steak and eggs.  It’s also lovely to share with a neighbor, if you happen to be the friendly sort.

Adapted from The Lemonade Cookbook.

Print
Homemade Steak Sauce

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 15 minutes

just over 1 cup

Homemade Steak Sauce

Steak and everything else sauce! Definitely don't skip the espresso powder and add a bit of crushed red pepper flakes for added spice!

Ingredients

  • 1 tablespoon canola oil
  • 1 small onion, finely diced (about 3/4 cup)
  • 2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely diced
  • 1/4 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley, chopped
  • 1/2 cup ketchup
  • 3/4 cup beef broth (or water)
  • 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
  • 2 teaspoons instant espresso powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

Instructions

  1. Heat oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Add onion and sauté, stirring occasionally, for 3 minutes until the onions are softened and translucent. Add garlic and parsley and sauté for 2 more minutes, until softened and fragrant.
  2. Add ketchup, broth or water, Worcestershire sauce, espresso powder, salt, and pepper. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 15 minutes stirring occasionally.
  3. Remove from heat and use an immersion blender to puree until smooth. If you don't have an immersion blender you can carefully transfer the mixture to an upright blender, cover, and blend until smooth. Transfer to a clean mason jar and allow to rest until cooled to room temperature. Seal with a lid and store in the refrigerator. Serve on grilled steak. Sauce will last in the refrigerator for up to 1 week.
https://joythebaker.com/2014/08/homemade-steak-sauce/

 

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. joann

    Thank you for a great base recipe! I made it as directed and found it good but a bit bland. Put it back on the stove and added a splash of liquid smoke, blueberry balsamic vinegar, hot sauce and a pinch of ground cloves, (don’t know why, just seemed right). Fantastic. Thank you for giving me a great jumping off point to a recipe I will go back to. Keep up the good work!

    Reply

  2. Sarah DCosta

    I’m an absolute suckers for sauces… Ketchup and BBQ sauce in particular. I just recently made some BBQ sauce for my blog, and co-incidently I used almost the same recipe (I swear I never saw your recipe before) minus the espresso, parsley and Beef Stock. I’ll try it again, and this time with the items I didn’t add the first time. I have a couple of blogs that I look upto as inspiration for mine, and you are one of them.

    I love how effortlessly gorgeous your pictures are. Though we have been having teeny weeny improvement in our blog pictures, we are still trying to find our style.
    :)

    Reply

  4. Lynn'sSouthernHeart

    I am a huge condiment gal myself!! I want lots of condiments and I want extra of each one too! Steak with extra sauce, potato with extra butter and sour cream, salad with extra dressing, seafood with extra lemon and butter, and also like everything to have extra spice…I wanna be eating my meal going “whew, that’s spicy”…I cant wait to try this!! Thanks so much for the recipe!

    Reply

  5. Alisha B

    Ooohhhh!!!!! My husband will love this! We also have a sauce laden fridge. I decided that the word is “bad-assery” it’s way more fun.

    Reply

  9. Vicki B

    I totally get the toppings. Ya gotta see the cheese on this place in my hometown. I don’t get how they make the “cheese skirt” topping but it involves ice cubes and a dome lid. Seriously, just get me an order of a cheese skirt; they can keep the rest!

    Reply

  10. Heather

    Looks delish! I, too, am all about the sauces. If a sandwich on a menu has aoli on it-I always order it, sometimes without looking to see what else it on it!

    Reply

  11. Emily

    I am TOTALLY making this tonight! As an aside, thanks for switching up how the recipe is laid out – I always had problems printing directly from your website. (Not that it ever deterred me!)

    Reply

  13. Clementine Buttercup

    I totally understand you dousing lobster in clarified butter. The best food ever. I love a good bbq sauce with a steak. Intrigued to taste how espresso adapts the sauce so might be on the cards for Friday night date steak. Thanks!

    Reply

  14. Nicole B.

    I really need to learn how to can so I can make this recipe in the future. Sounds amazing and I love how it can easily be used on steak, chicken, etc. Thanks again!

    Reply

  17. Cecile

    ‘Well I’ll Be Danged’ – Espresso Powder in steak sauce – – genius !! I can understand your difficulty is trying to explain exactly what is the Espresso Powder adds to the sauce because, just yesterday, I was trying to explain to someone what the addition of cocoa powder to a mole sauce adds in flavor… pretty much impossible to describe except to say ‘ depth of flavor’ and ‘IT MAKES IT TASTE BETTER!!! ‘ ; O )

    Reply

  23. Sarah in CA

    Will be making this steak sauce very soon. But what I really want to know is what is the green sauce pan you are using. We are needing to replace very old pans. Yours looked wonderful.
    Thanks!

    Reply

  25. tara

    I’m a big fan of sauces, especially melted butter! Sauce on everything!! This looks fantastic and I also kind of want to dip a potato in that sauce. In addition to the steak, obvi.

    Reply

  31. Girl Named Allyn

    Whenever I think of steak sauce (which I do like), I think back to when my then vegan sister worked at a steakhouse, and swore she could tell how low her tip was going to be according to how people ordered their steak and what they put on it. Medium-rare and nothing? Great tip! Medium-well and steak sauce? 50-50 chance of a decent tip. Well-done and ketchup? You’re screwed. Might as well pour some water in their laps.

    Reply

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