These Garlic Herb Steak Bites can be whatever you want. Appetizer? Serve them with toothpicks. Dinner entrée? Serve them with rice or potatoes! Kids love ’em, too!
I grew up in a very meat and potatoes household. My dad would have eaten steak for dinner every single night if it were an option. Turns out, I also love steak! But serving a huge steak is something I reserve for special occasions, not regularly, to avoid the Dad Add 10 Pounds.
These Easy Garlic Herb Steak Bites are a great way for steak lovers to have steak without cooking up a huge hunk of meat. Plus, they cook in under 10 minutes.
I had a suspicion that my kids would love these things because they tend to like steak AND they like tiny food. You never know though, right?
WHAT ARE STEAK BITES?
Steak bites are pretty much what they sound like. You take your steak and cut it into chunks, cook those chunks, and BOOM! You have steak bites!
I usually shoot for about 1/2-inch cubes for my steak bites. You shouldn’t have to take multiple bites of a steak bite!
There are many benefits of making steak in bite form. For one, you can toss the bites in a delicious butter and parsley sauce which coats every side of the bites and makes them extra moist and flavorful.
Secondly, you can serve these bites in many ways: They work great as an appetizer or an entrée!
WHAT CUT SHOULD YOU USE FOR STEAK BITES?
The actual steak you use for steak bites is up to you, but don’t use something that is too tough or too lean. That rules out stuff like roasts, flank steak, or skirt steak. You want something that’s somewhere in the middle that has some marbling and fat but doesn’t have a super-high fat content.
I like to use a good New York strip, sirloin, or ribeye steak for these. Although I would normally want a very marbled steak for cooking whole, I try to find a less marbled steak for steak bites. You want some fat, but not as much as if you were cooking the steak whole. If your steak bites are made with a steak that has too much fat, there’s a chance that some bites will be almost all fat, which isn’t great!
HOW TO COOK STEAK BITES
As you might imagine, these cook much faster than a full steak. Here are some tips on how to make the best bites possible.
- Cook them mostly on one side—if you try to cook them evenly on all sides, you won’t get a nice crust on the bites.
- Toss them in a medium-high heat skillet and walk away! Let them cook, undisturbed for three to four minutes and they will develop a great crust on that side. Then you can stir and finish cooking the bites. (I’m not OCD enough to actually flip each and every bite. I just stir them and figure it’s good enough—which it is.)
- After the steak bites cook for another minute or two they are done. In my book, that means they are slightly medium in the center with a tiny bit of pink. If you want them cooked all the way through, then keep cooking them into submission.
- At the very end, add butter and parsley and stir to coat the bites!
HOW TO SERVE STEAK BITES
These are an all-purpose meal. Having some people over to watch a game? Make these and serve them with toothpicks. Need dinner? Serve them with a starch (rice, potatoes) and a veggie or salad.
Bonus! I find that they naturally help with portion control. While I would have no problem eating an 8-ounce steak, I don’t have the same urge to eat, like, 25 steak bites.
The DAD ADD: Steak Bite Grilled Cheese!
Do yourself a favor: before you even serve these, squirrel away about 6 to 8 steak bites so you can make a grilled cheese sandwich the next day.
For the sandwich, chop up the steak bites, smear a few pieces of bread with mustard, and add Swiss cheese. Sandwich it all together and cook in a skillet with some butter or olive oil.
It’s AMAZING. I use plain sandwich bread, either white or wheat, but you could fancy it up with some sliced sourdough.
REPORT CARD
These were an easy sell for exactly one of my children. My four-year-old basically inhaled them. I barely got a photo before they were gone.
Meanwhile, my two-year-old literally sat and watched him eat every single one. Just staring, like, you crazy, BRO.
I realized that they were still a bit on the big side for her, so I chopped hers up into even tinier bites (MINI STEAK BITES!) and then she got into a bit more. Both kids ate enough that we didn’t have to resort to yogurt tubes and applesauce dinner, so I’ll call it a win!
Steak bites, I love you.
LOVE STEAK? HERE ARE MORE WAYS TO ENJOY IT!
Garlic Herb Steak Bites Recipe
- Prep time: 10 minutes
- Cook time: 15 minutes
- Yield: About 50 steak bites (4 for dinner, or 8 to 10 for a party)
Ingredients
For the steak bites:
- 1 1/4 pounds steak, trimmed of fat and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 teaspoon garlic powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon black pepper
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
- 2 tablespoons fresh minced parsley
For the DAD ADD: Steak Bite Grilled Cheese
- 6 to 8 cooked steak bites, chopped
- 2 slices Swiss cheese
- 1 tablespoon mustard
- 2 slices sandwich bread
- Olive oil or butter for cooking
Method
1 Marinate the steak: Combine the cubed steak pieces in a bowl along with olive oil, garlic powder, salt, and pepper. Let it sit for at least 15 minutes to marinate. You could do this up to a day in advance and store the steak bites in the fridge.
2 Cook the steak bites: Heat a large cast iron skillet over medium-high heat. A drop of water in the skillet should sizzle and immediately evaporate. Once hot, add the steak bites. Let the steak bites sit without touching them for 3 minutes so they can get a crust on one side.
Stir the bites and continue to cook for another 2 minutes until they reach desired doneness. I prefer mine with a tiny bit of pink in the middle, almost like a medium steak. If you want them cooked all the way through, cook for another minute or two.
3 Toss with butter and serve: When the steak bites have a nice crust on one side and are browned all over, turn off the heat. Add butter to the skillet and stir to coat the steak bites with butter. Sprinkle liberally with fresh parsley and serve immediately either with toothpicks (as an appetizer) or as a dinner entrée alongside potatoes, rice, or veggies.
Leftover steak bites keep well in the fridge for 4 to 5 days. Reheat in a skillet over low heat with an extra drizzle of olive oil or in a microwave on high heat for 15-second bursts until warmed through. The skillet method will better preserve the texture of the steak bites.
THE DAD ADD: Steak Bite Grilled Cheese
Add a drizzle of olive oil to a small skillet over medium-low heat. Smear two pieces of bread with a little mustard. Add the bread, mustard side up, to the skillet to coat it with olive oil. Add a slice of cheese to the bread, top with the chopped steak bites, and top with a second slice of cheese. Add the second piece of bread to finish the sandwich.
Cook sandwich over medium-low heat until the cheese is melted and the bread is browned on both sides. Slice in half and serve while warm!
