Slow Cooker Amish Cube Steak with Brown Gravy

This Slow Cooker Amish-style cube steak is the kind of meal you come home to and feel instantly relieved. Tender beef, rich brown gravy, soft potatoes — all done in the Slow Cooker with almost no effort on your part. Set it up in the morning and supper takes care of itself.

Why You’ll Love It

Practically cooks itself — layer everything in the Slow Cooker, put the lid on, and walk away for the day
Fork-tender meat — low and slow turns an affordable cut into something that melts on contact
Built-in sides — the potatoes and onions cook right in the gravy, so there’s less to prep and less to clean up
Deep, savory flavor — the brown gravy and onion soup mix do all the heavy seasoning work without any extra fuss
Leftovers are even better — the gravy thickens overnight and the whole thing reheats beautifully

A Few Notes on the Ingredients

Cube steak is already tenderized — that’s the whole point of the cut. The butcher runs it through a machine that breaks down the muscle fibers, which is why it looks the way it does, with that irregular, almost dimpled surface. Don’t skip this cut and try to substitute a regular round steak. I’ve tried. It’s not the same.
For the gravy, I use canned condensed brown gravy — the kind you mix with water. It’s not fancy and I’m not sorry about it. I’ve tried making brown gravy from scratch for this and it’s more work than the dish warrants. The canned stuff works perfectly here and if you feel conflicted about it, don’t. Nobody’s watching.
The dry onion soup mix is doing a lot of work in this recipe. It adds salt, depth, a little sweetness. I’ve used the store brand and I’ve used the name brand and I can’t honestly tell the difference, so buy whichever one’s cheaper.
Potatoes — I usually use russet because that’s what I keep on hand, but yellow potatoes work just as well and maybe hold their shape a little better if that matters to you. I slice them about half an inch thick. Thinner and they kind of dissolve into the gravy, which is maybe not a disaster but it’s not what I’m going for.

Ingredients

1½ to 2 pounds cube steak — about 4 pieces, give or take
2 cans condensed brown gravy (the 10.5-ounce cans)
½ to 1 cup water, depending on how thick the gravy is from the can
4 medium russet or yellow potatoes, peeled and sliced about ½-inch thick (I eyeball this)
1 large yellow onion, sliced — not too thin
1 packet dry onion soup mix, the standard 1-ounce size

How I Make It

First things first — spray or oil the inside of your Slow Cooker. I use a 6-quart and it fits the steaks comfortably. This step is annoying but the cleanup is so much easier if you don’t skip it. I skipped it once and it took me twenty minutes to scrub the thing out. Lesson learned.
Spread the potato slices across the bottom. Don’t worry about being neat. Then scatter the onion over the potatoes — some of it will shift around when you pour the gravy, and that’s fine.
Lay the cube steaks over the onions and potatoes. They can overlap slightly if they need to. Try to keep them mostly flat so the gravy reaches all of them evenly.
Sprinkle the onion soup mix evenly over the raw steaks. It’s going to look like a lot. It’s not.
In a bowl or a big measuring cup — I use a two-cup measuring cup — whisk together the two cans of condensed gravy and about half a cup of water to start. You want it pourable but still thick, like a loose gravy consistency. If it’s still too thick, add a little more water. You’ll know when it looks right.
Pour that over the steaks. It’ll run down into the potatoes and onions, and that’s exactly what you want. The meat should be mostly submerged in gravy — not floating, but covered. One time I didn’t add enough water and the gravy on the edges kind of scorched. Not terribly, but enough that I noticed. Add enough water.
Lid goes on. Cook on LOW for 6 to 8 hours, or on HIGH for 3 to 4 hours. I almost always do LOW, because that’s when I start it in the morning before work. By the time I get home, the house smells incredible and the meat is so tender it practically falls apart when you look at it.
Taste the gravy before you serve it and decide if it needs anything. Usually it doesn’t — the soup mix and the canned gravy bring plenty of salt — but sometimes I’ll add a little black pepper or a splash of Worcestershire, which adds a depth I really like and didn’t expect the first time I tried it.

Variations

If you want something closer to a beef stroganoff situation, stir about half a cup of sour cream into the hot gravy right before you serve it. It makes the gravy creamy and a little tangy and honestly very good. I started doing this accidentally one night when I had sour cream that needed to be used up, and now I almost always do it.
Carrots are a good addition if you have them. Tuck two or three sliced carrots in with the potatoes — they soften beautifully and add a little sweetness that balances the saltiness of the gravy.
If you’d rather serve this over egg noodles than with potatoes, just skip the potatoes in the Slow Cooker and boil the noodles separately when you’re ready to eat. The cube steak and gravy spooned over buttered noodles is its own kind of wonderful.
Worcestershire sauce — about a tablespoon stirred into the gravy before you pour it — adds an old-fashioned depth that I really like. It tastes like something from a diner, which I mean as a compliment.

Leftovers

This keeps in the fridge for three or four days easily. I’ve pushed it to five and it was fine, though by then the potatoes are very soft and kind of merged with the gravy, which isn’t a problem if you’re just reheating it in a bowl. For lunch the next day I’ll sometimes shred any remaining steak with a fork and pile it on a piece of toast with some of the gravy — it’s like an open-faced hot beef sandwich and it’s a little ridiculous how good it is.
Reheat it covered, either in the microwave or in a saucepan on low. Add a splash of water if the gravy has thickened too much in the fridge.

Serve it with buttered egg noodles, or mashed potatoes, or honestly just a slice of good white bread that can absorb the gravy. A side of green beans or peas keeps it from feeling too heavy.