What is chicken-fried steak and gravy? Chicken-fried steak is steak that’s been coated and fried as if it were a piece of chicken. It’s a classic Texas recipe, although its origin is unknown. Different theories claim it’s a version of wiener schnitzel, that it was a mistake created by a restaurant cook and that it really started in Colorado and Kansas and worked its way down to Texas.
This recipe is for a version most closely associated with eastern Texas in which the steak is dipped in flour, milk and egg, then pan-fried and covered with a gravy made from the drippings. The meat is cube steak, which is a manually or machine-tenderized piece of the round primal cut from the hind leg and rump of the cow. It’s not a naturally tender cut. The coating uses flour instead of bread crumbs to form a crispy crust that adheres beautifully to the meat, and the whole thing is topped off with a creamy country gravy. Best of all, this is a 30-minute meal, start to finish.
Chicken-Fried Steak Ingredients
- All-purpose flour: Both the coating and the gravy use all-purpose flour. The flour creates a nicely browned and crispy crust when fried, and it helps thicken the gravy that you’ll serve with the finished steak.
- Eggs: These act as a layer of glue for two separate coats of flour. You’ll need one coat of flour to help the eggs stay on the meat; otherwise, they’d drip right off. But one coat of flour won’t create that thick, crunchy coating, because excess flour will just fall off the meat before you add the egg—and that also means the second coat won’t stick unless you have an additional sticky layer between the two.
- Lowfat milk: Using 2% milk helps make the gravy creamy without adding too much fat. You’ll also add some milk to the eggs during the dredging step to create an egg wash that’s a little thinner and easier to work with than plain egg.
- Cube steaks: While you could tenderize round steaks prior to dredging them, stick with cube steaks that were pre-tenderized for this recipe. They’ll save you time and reduce the number of utensils you have to wash after cooking. Cube steaks look almost like loosely formed ground meat patties that are about 1/4 inch thick, and you’ll want the steaks to be about 6 ounces each.
Directions
Step 1: Create your coating station
Get two large but shallow bowls. Add 1 cup of flour to one. In the other, mix the eggs with 1/2 cup of milk and ensure they’re well-blended.
Step 2: Dredge the steaks
Season each steak with salt and pepper, using about 3/4 teaspoon of each for all the steaks (1-1/2 teaspoons of salt-pepper mixture total). Dip both sides of one steak in the flour. Tap off any excess flour, dip both sides of the steak in the egg wash and then return the steak to the flour. Coat both sides once again. Remember to coat the edges of the steaks too. Repeat the dredging for the other steaks.
Step 3: Cook the steaks
Add enough oil to a heavy skillet over medium heat to create a layer 1/4 inch deep. Place each steak in the oil to fry; you may have to do this in batches if you have a smaller skillet. Cook the steaks for four to six minutes on each side, ensuring the coating becomes a nice, golden brown. Check the temperature of each steak with an instant-read thermometer and cook until each is 160°F. Remove the finished steaks from the oil and place on a bed of paper towels to drain excess oil. Keep the steaks warm while you make the gravy.
Editor’s Tip: To check the temperature of the steaks, insert the thermometer in the side of the steak through the edge, so that the thermometer runs horizontally through the meat. To keep the steaks warm after cooking, cover them loosely with a tent of aluminum foil.
Step 4: Make the gravy
Drain most of the oil from the pan, leaving about 2 tablespoons. Add 1/4 cup of flour along with 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon of pepper (these should be the amounts you have remaining after dredging, so you shouldn’t have to re-measure them). Mix everything in the pan and cook over medium heat until you start to see the mixture turn golden. This should take three to four minutes. Carefully add the remaining 1 cup of milk and the water, whisking them both into the oil-flour mixture. Stir constantly while bringing the mixture to a boil, then keep stirring and cooking until the mixture thickens into a gravy. This should take only one to two minutes.
Chicken-Fried Steak Variations
- Swap in other cuts of steak: You don’t have to use cube steak or tenderized round steak for this recipe, but they are the best choices. If you want to try other cuts of meat, ensure you use either very tender cuts or that you pound the cuts with a meat mallet so they’re 1/4 inch thick. If you want to buy your own round steaks, look for thin steaks only, or ask the butcher to cut thin steaks off a round cut for you.
- Try country-fried steak: Country-fried steak is about the same as chicken-fried steak, just with a beef gravy instead of a creamy milk-and-flour gravy. You may hear the names used interchangeably too, especially in the South.
- Make the recipe gluten-free: You don’t have to use all-purpose flour if you need to avoid gluten.
How to Store Chicken-Fried Steak
Now that you know how to make chicken-fried steak, any leftovers can be refrigerated or frozen, but you won’t be able to freeze the gravy. Its texture changes for the worse when thawed. To store leftover steaks in the refrigerator, stack a couple in a shallow, airtight container, separated by a sheet of parchment paper. Use these within three to four days. To freeze, let the steaks (without gravy) cool down a bit, then wrap them in freezer-safe plastic wrap. Store the wrapped steaks in freezer-safe bags and squeeze out the extra air. Use the frozen steaks within three months to reduce the chance of them becoming freezer-burned.
Chicken-Fried Steak Tips
How do you tenderize round steak?
Wrap the steak in plastic wrap, and then hit each side of it lightly with the spiky side of a meat mallet. The plastic wrap keeps the process a lot neater than if you hit the meat directly with the mallet. However, you still need to wash the mallet with dish soap and water afterward, because the plastic wrap can sometimes tear without your realizing it.
Should you rinse the cube steak before dredging?
No, you don’t need to rinse the cube steak. In fact, you shouldn’t rinse meat, chicken or other proteins before cooking. All you’ll end up doing is spattering the rinse water around your sink, possibly spreading bacteria.
Is it OK if the steak is a little pink inside?
If your steak is a little pink inside, that’s OK, as long as the internal temperature of the steak is at least 160°. But the steak should be only 1/4 inch thick, and that should cook so quickly that the interior should have no pink in it by the time the coating has crisped up and turned golden.
