Frozen dinners ain't got nothin' on my Salisbury Steaks!

Call me old fashioned, call me boring, but I love Salisbury steak! Give me a plate of Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes, and green beans and call it a meal! Growing up it was one of my favorite meals and not much has changed.  My family eats it at least once a week, it’s cheap, it’s easy, but unfortunately it’s usually in the form of a frozen, processed, brick.  I’ve been buying it this way for years; I know how to make it from scratch (it’s usually the way my mom made it), but the frozen dinners are so much faster and easier.  Lately though I’ve noticed that the On-Cor and Banquet Salisbury steak has gotten less and less flavorful. 

Maybe it has always been that way but I’ve just started noticing it more and I’m not digging it.  In an effort to eat food that’s less processed and cheaper I decided that for our weekly Salisbury steak dinner I would make it from scratch. 

Remember all of that ground beef I scored last week?

A picture just in case you forgot!

Well, I set aside a pound specifically to make this very meal.  After I finished I realized I probably should’ve set back more, maybe 1.5 lbs or 1.75 lbs.  One pound was just barely enough for me, my husband, and my stepdaughter.  I bought some Kroger Brown Gravy mixes to top these with, I prefer Heinz Beef gravy but it was out of my budget this week.   

We will get to the gravy in a minute, first I want to start with the beef.

First, I put the thawed hamburger in a bowl and added finely shredded carrot, my grated onion (ya know the one from the freezer!), pepper, seasoned salt, and garlic powder.  I don’t have exact measurements and I apologize for that, I will get better at measuring things for y’all.  I just eyeball things and do what looks right.  I mix all of this by hand in the bowl and then I divide it into balls that I then form into patties.  Before I placed these in the frying pan I wanted to get my gravy and my green beans going.  I put my canned green beans in the pot with a little salt, pepper, some of my grated onion, and bacon, heat over low heat and let them go.

For the gravy, since I was using a mix, I wanted to get it up to temp so it could thicken and marry with the seasonings I added while the Salisbury steaks were cooking.  You could absolutely make your own gravy from the grease from the cooked hamburger if you so choose, I was just feeling particularly lazy this evening and decided to take the easy route. Shh, you can do the same, I won’t tell! With the gravy I followed the package directions and added a few seasonings of my own because packaged gravy is about the most boring, bland thing you can buy. I added just a little salt, pepper, and some onion powder till it tasted how I wanted it to.  
 

Follow the directions and most of all pay attention, go low and slow! Gravy can get away from you very quickly and turn lumpy, no one likes lumpy gravy.  


In between stirring my gravy I put my patties in the frying pan and get them started.  I cooked them until the juices ran clear.  When the patties were done I removed them from the pan and placed them on a paper towel to soak up any extra grease and then I drained the pan. 

Now, as I mentioned before you can make your own gravy from the grease and hamburger bits left in the pan, if you choose to do this don't drain the grease! But I'm lazy remember! 

Don't drain this off if you are making your own gravy!!!

I drained the grease but I didn't wipe it out, I wanted to save the little bits to add more flavor to the gravy.  If you're feeling health conscious, wipe the rest of the grease and the bits out of the pan. It looked like this.

I added a few spoonfuls of the gravy to the pan over low heat and gently scraped the bottom of the pan until the gravy came to a low simmer.  

After it reached a simmer I returned the patties to the pan and then poured the rest of the gravy over the patties and heated over low to medium heat until it came to a simmer.

After it reached a simmer I shut if off and dinner was ready! 

Looks pretty yummy, ehh? Enjoy!!!