NY Strip Steak Sous Vide with Cowboy Butter

Jeff the Chef
"NY Strip Steak," from Make It Like a Man!
Green Beans and Baked Potatoes on the Side

This recipe for NY Strip Steak Sous Vide with Cowboy Butter produces a perfectly seasoned, perfectly cooked, deeply satisfying, man-sized, beef extravaganza. You could get a lot fancier with the sides if you want, but I chose simple green beans and salt-of-the-earth baked potatoes.

NY Strip Steak Sous Vide
Pin
Print

NY Strip Steak Sous Vide

Recipe by Make It Like a Man!Course: DinnerCuisine: American
Serves

2

lavishly
Could stretch to

4

reasonably

Prep the potatoes and beans while the steaks are sous viding. Turn on the Instant Pot and start microwaving the potatoes when the sous vide is 10 minutes from done.

Ingredients

  • For the cowboy butter

  • 4 Tbs butter, softened

  • 1 Tbs chopped fresh parsley

  • 1 Tbs chopped fresh chives

  • 1/2 tsp grated lemon zest

  • 1 tsp lemon juice

  • 1 tsp dijon mustard

  • For the steak

  • 2 NY strip steaks, 1 pound each, 1.5 inches thick

  • 4 tsp coarse salt

  • Fresh, coarsely ground pepper

  • 3 fresh rosemary sprigs

  • 4 fresh thyme sprigs

  • 1 Tbs safflower oil

  • 1 Tbs butter

  • For the potatoes

  • 2 large russet potatoes

  • Olive oil

  • Salt

  • Softened butter, for serving

  • For the beans

  • Any amount of fresh beans, end trimmed

  • 1.5 cups of water

  • 1 Tbs butter

  • Salt, to taste

Directions

  • Make the cowboy butter:
  • Mash all ingredients together with a fork. Scoop the butter mixture onto a sheet of plastic wrap. Use the plastic wrap to help you form it into a 3-inch log, wrapped in plastic. Refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes. Slice and re-wrap. Allow to soften before using.
  • Make the steaks:
  • For medium-rare steaks, preheat the sous vide to 130°F (or anywhere from 129°F to 134°F).
  • Lay one steak on a work surface. Using 1 teaspoon of salt, season the top of the steak generously. Use most of the salt, but any that you do not use, dump onto the work surface. Season with pepper to taste. Pat the salt and pepper into the steak. Flip the steak and repeat on the other side. Push the sides of the steak into the salt that you left on the work surface, to get salt on them, too. In the end, most of the salt should wind up on the steak. Place the steak into a bag, positioning a rosemary sprig evenly across the top, and a thyme sprig even across the bottom. Repeat with second steak. Vacuum seal both bags. Sous vide the steaks for 1 to 4 hours (2.5 hours max if under 130°F).
  • Remove the steaks from the bags, discard the herbs, and place the steaks on a paper towel-lined plate. Pat them thoroughly dry on all sides. Ready a sheet pan with a cooling rack on top, and some aluminum foil.
  • This step must go quicky and will seem chaotic. Turn on your furnace fan, your range fan, and open your windows – even if it’s the middle of winter. Preheat a large, cast-iron skillet over an ultra-high burner on its highest setting for 5 minutes, or until it until it starts to smoke. Add the oil and use a wooden spatula to move it around in the pan. Lay in the steaks. Carefully count 25 seconds, and then lay a rosemary sprig, two thyme sprigs, and the butter into the pan, alongside one of the steaks. Wait 5 seconds, then use tongs to flip the steaks. Baste the top sides with the butter from the pan. Continue flipping and basting every 30 seconds until you have a color you like. (Note: this shouldn’t take long. Two 30-second sears per side – three at the most – should do it.) Off heat. Use the pan’s residual heat to sear the steaks’ edges. Rest the steaks on the rack and tent them with the foil briefly while you plate the sides. (Sous vide steaks need only minimal resting.)
  • Reheat pan juices until sizzling. Remove foil from steaks. Spoon (or pour) some hot juices over the steaks, letting it drip off of them. They should sizzle as you do this. Plate and serve immediately, topped with cowboy butter.
  • Make the potatoes:
  • Preheat the oven to its lowest setting. Massage potatoes lightly with a generous-enough amount of oil, so that the salt will stick to them. Salt them. Place them into a shallow, microwave-safe bowl, leaning them all away from the center of the bowl and away from one another.
  • Nuke them at 100% for 7.5 minutes. Take their temperature. Flip them and return them to the microwave for another 7.5 minutes. Take their temperature again. The thermometer should slide in almost like the potato wasn’t there, and interior should reach around 200°F. If it doesn’t/hasn’t, continue to flip and cook.
  • Tent the potatoes with foil and place them in the oven to keep them warm. Place the dinner plates in the oven to warm them. At serving time, top the potatoes with a pat of softened butter.
  • Make the beans:
  • Place the steamer rack in the pot. Place the beans atop it, and pour in the water. Set the STEAM function to Less (1 minute), High (pressure); Quick Release. Empty the pot into a collander immediately. Add butter to bottom of empty-but-still-warm inner pot, add the beans back in, salt to taste. Cover with foil and place into oven to keep warm.

Notes

  • This is the perfect amount of coarse salt for the steaks. If you substitute table salt, you’re on your own.
  • One minute will give you fully cooked beans. If you’d like them al dente, quick release the machine as soon as it hits the pressurization point.
"NY Strip Steak," from Make It Like a Man!

The Backstory

Two prime, one-pound, NY strips will set you back and eyebrow-raising amount. You can console yourself in realizing that at a world-class steakhouse, they’d cost twice what they do at the butcher. Of course, for all the money you’re saving, you do have to cook them yourself.

Once you have one of the priciest pieces of meat you’ve ever owned sitting on your cutting board, it’s natural to get a little nervous. RuPaul’s sassy admonition to “don’t fuck it up” may seem to play nonstop in your head. Shove her off stage and relax; you can do this.

I wouldn’t go so far as saying I’m a steak expert, but I can tell you that I make a pretty decent one, and here’s what I’ve learned: It’s all about the seasoning and the sear. You have to be brave about both. The danger is overcooking the interior. The sous vide takes the guesswork out of that, but it makes the sear even more dangerous in as much as it makes it even easier to overcook the steak if you’re not furiously careful.

Social Learning

The Steak

You don’t have to use safflower oil for searing. Any vegetable or canola oil with a high smoke point will do.

I get the impression that it’s common to slice a NY strip before serving. In that case, a one-pound steak could or maybe should serve two … but you’d better have a lot of sides. To my way of thinking, part of the definition of “steak” is to have a cut of beef as big as a plate set before you. Eating a one-pound steak may not be the best thing for you, depending on your nutritional religion. I consider it to be a rare and much-looked-forward-to indulgence.

The cowboy butter is fantastic on the steaks! It enhances the flavor without becoming a distraction or artifice. But the steaks don’t need any sort of dressing up, so feel free to skip the cowboy butter if you like. You could use the cowboy butter on the potatoes, but I like the cleaner taste of plain butter for the potatoes. It’s the lemon in the cowboy butter that makes it clash with the potato.

Some cooks sear sous vided steaks on only one side and serve them seared-side-up. This helps ensure that you will not accidentally overcook them. Some cooks will torch the steaks in addition to searing, to get an added char. Sometimes I do this, sometimes I don’t. (I did it for this post.) It can be worth it if you seriously go to town with that torch. Again, be brave; I have not yet started a kitchen fire, no matter how freaked out I get about that torch. Modest torching won’t get you anything.

The Sides

Your microwave may have a potato setting, which may be worth using instead of following my directions. I get better results manually.

I usually measure green beans by the fistfull. One fistfull per person. Leftover beans can wind up in a garden salad.

I’m sure there’s a way to sous vide these sides.

"NY Strip Steak," from Make It Like a Man!
NY Strip Steak Sous Vide with Cowboy Butter

Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man!, unless otherwise indicated. Thank you, Kesor. This content was not solicited by anyone, nor was it written in exchange for anything. References: Serious Eats, The Pioneer Woman, Steak and Potatoes, Under Water.

Ranked by Feedspot as #15 in the Top 30 Men’s Cooking Blogs. Keep up with us on Bloglovin’

Large Blog Image

Spaghetti and Meatballs in an Instant Pot
Korean-Inspired Pot Roast in an Instant Pot

34 thoughts on “NY Strip Steak Sous Vide with Cowboy Butter”

    • Well, it’s not the only way, and I have a feeling you have method that you’ve perfected. But yeah, the cowboy butter’s cool, isn’t it?

      Reply

    • Thanks, yeah, the butter’s pretty good. There have been times when I’ve cooked every day, but not in the past handful of years. Maybe three days a week? And then leftovers or things that don’t need “cooking” the rest of the time.

      Reply

  6. Chaos is right! Searing a beautifully cooked steak once the surface is patted dry is sphincter clenching. Hoping not to burn it or cook it any further and yet get a good sear for that added texture and mouthfeel.

    Reply

  7. I love your measuring device for green beans – I think all ingredients should be measured like that. “enough steak for a hungry man.” “handful of flour plus a little bit more.” “enough cinnamon to taste it” “splash or two of vanilla extract.” This could get really fun! Switching gears, that steak looks like perfection! Forget fancy steak house – I’m coming to your place. And that cowboy butter? Fantastic and easy way to elevate the entire thing!
    David @ Spiced recently posted…Nutella Cookies

    Reply

    • Thanks, David! If you come by, we’ll have fistfuls of veggies and plates full of steak!

      Reply

  9. That butter! I’d love to have it at the ready all the time — for so many things. My son would absolutely flip for this meal. He’s all about steak and potatoes — especially a delicious NY Strip! 🙂 ~Valentina

    Reply

    • Tell me about it! I should be doing the same thing. I hope you’ll share some of the compound butters you come up with!

      Reply

  12. cowboy butter? that sounds really tasty jeff. i don’t cook steak and i have it about once a year when eating at a pub but i do like a good steak! must say how much i appreciate that your blog is not full of copeous ads and extraneous rubbish (the endless links to old posts, and the same photos over and over, and 3 different repeats of the ingredients etc etc…) like so many other blogs!! i quite often give up reading posts cos i just can’t bear all the nonsense. so – good work!
    sherry recently posted…Polish Strawberry Kisiel – AKA Strawberry Fruit Pudding

    Reply

    • Thank you, Sherry. I do it as a hobby. Without pressure to monetize, I’m free to do as I will, And that’s led me to regard this blog as my weirdly public, personal cookbook.

      Reply

  13. What a fantastic read. Cooking steak is kind of in my DNA I think, as I grew up in Rockhampton, which lays claim to being the beef capital of Australia. However I have never used a sous vide. I must make your Cowboy butter though and surprise my husband, it sounds absolutely delicious, and the North Queensland Rugby League football team we follow are the Cowboys, so it’s a no brainer. Thanks for the inspiration Jeff.
    Pauline recently posted…Lemon Sour Cream Bundt Cake

    Reply

  14. I’m excited that a friend is giving me a sous vide wand… this will be the first thing I try! The steak plus the cowboy butter? I can only imagine! Thanks for this, Jeff!

    Reply

    • I think you’ll love the sous vide with steak! It’s perfect for that!

      Reply

  15. Howdy Jeff, now that’s one fine-looking hunk of beef. Sous vide is the only way I’d treat a piece of meat like that. We use our sous vide on many things but steak is one of my favorite dishes prepared via sous vide. Well done on the instructions. Now, if I could just afford a decent American prime sirloin, it sells for outrage prices over here. Our Swedish beef, although flavorful, is all free-range grass-fed, thus on the chewy side.
    I had to chuckle about the cowboy butter, when I was a kid growing up in Texas we made a very similar butter, but we just called it steak butter. Oh, and yes on the baked potato for sure.
    Ron recently posted…A peek at Gothenburg and a visit to Haga…

    Reply

    • Well, it costs an arm and a leg here, too. Nice to hear from you!

      Reply

  16. that steak looks perfectly cooked! I’ve never had sous vide anything, but after seeing this, I might have to seek one out. As for the cowboy butter – I could put that on everything!!!

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*
*
Website

CommentLuv badge