Recipe Background
Make Sunday's Oven-Baked Round Steak for an easy, comforting meal.
Back when I landed my first job right out of college, Sunday dinners became a comforting ritual. The small one-bedroom apartment I called home wasn’t much, but it was all mine. With a tight budget and limited kitchen tools, I needed a recipe that would bring warmth to the space without costing much. My mother’s recipe book was my culinary north star, and inside was a gem: oven-baked round steak. The ingredients were simple, just a round steak and some canned soups, nothing fancy but all heart.
Cracking open a can of cream of chicken soup and cream of mushroom soup became a meditative act. Whisking them with a pack of brown gravy mix and a cup of water was my nod to my mother’s no-nonsense approach. Those essential cans were always in my pantry. The beauty of this beloved dish is in its unhurried baking—a perfect three-hour window to watch a couple of episodes of my favorite TV show, confident that dinner was underway. To top it off with a flourish, I added parsley, a habit born out of my recent discovery that a sprinkle of green could make any dish feel special.
If you’re attempting this journey of flavors, my advice is to spare no time in trimming the fat from the steak. It keeps the dish from becoming too greasy and honors the simplicity of the ingredients. Sunday dinners became my anchor during those early job days, a tradition that both filled and sustained me.
Ingredients
- 1 (1-pound) round steak
- 1 (10.5-ounce) can cream of chicken soup
- 1 (10.5-ounce) can cream of mushroom soup
- 1 (0.87-ounce) package brown gravy mix
- 1 cup water
- parsley leaves optional, to taste, for garnish
Directions
- Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.
- Trim the excess fat from the round steak.
- In a 9x13-inch baking dish, add the round steak.
- In a small bowl, add the cream of chicken soup, the cream of mushroom soup, the gravy mix, and the water and stir to combine.
- Pour the soup mixture over the round steak.
- Cover the baking dish with foil.
- Bake the baking dish until the steak reaches an internal temperature of at least 155 degrees F for well done, about 3 hours.
- Serve garnished with the parsley.
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