Southern Salisbury Steak Recipe

Salisbury Steaks are also called hamburger steaks especially in restaurants outside the South. The dish is basically hamburger cooked and served with gravy for a meal that feels more special than regular cooked burger patties. Most often the dish is served with mashed potatoes but is also good over cooked noodles.

Blue Plate Specials or Meat and Three meals often include Salisbury Steak as one of the meat options. Typical sides in addition to the mashed potatoes include green beans, black eyed peas, and fried apples.

Origin of Salisbury Steak

While many dishes are named after towns where they originated, Salisbury steak is named after a person – Dr. James John Salisbury. Salisbury was a physician during the Civil War. He had an interest in diet and nutrition and felt that eating ground meat and drinking coffee would reduce problems with diarrhea within the troops. He advocated limiting fruits and vegetables.

Dr. Salisbury was from New York, so Salisbury Steak actually originated in the North. The dish quickly became popular in the South where meat and potatoes have been and still are very popular.

Southern Salisbury Steak Recipe

The Patties

• 1 ½ lbs ground beef (leaner beef shrinks less)
• 2 eggs
• 2 TBS onion chopped fine
• ¼ cup crackers crushed well
• 1 tsp salt
• ½ tsp pepper
• ½ tsp sage seasoning

The Gravy

• ¼ cup butter
• 2 cans mushrooms sliced (4 ounce cans)
• 6 TBS plain flour
• 3 ½ cups water
• 4 bouillon cubes (beef)

Directions for the Salisbury Steak Patties:

1. Place ground beef in a large bowl and add eggs, onions, crackers, salt, pepper and sage. Mix well. Using your hands works best to get the ingredients well mixed.
2. Divide meat into four portions and shape into steaks. Typically Salisbury steak patties are made oval instead of round; however, round is fine. Just don’t make them too thick, or they’re hard to cook through.
3. Cook the meat patties on both sides until browned and cooked through. Then, set the patties aside.
4. Pour off hamburger grease and wipe inside of pan.

Directions for the Gravy:

• Add butter to the skillet where the patties were cooked and let butter melt.
• Pour drained mushroom slices into hot butter and cook for two minutes stirring.
• Add flour and mix well. A fork or a whisk works well for getting the flour mixed in.
• Add water and bouillon cubes. Cook on medium until the sauce thickens up.
• If you like a darker colored gravy, you can add Kitchen Bouquet or other browning ingredient to the gravy. This is only for eye appeal and not required.

• Place the cooked Salisbury steaks back in the gravy and turn heat to low. Let simmer on low for around 10 minutes.

Other favorite Southern recipes made with ground beef:

Electric Skillet Meat Loaf - Making meat loaf in an electric skillet gives it a nice crisp crust. It's also easier to drain off the meat with this ground beef recipe.

Hamburger Vegetables Soup - This is a variation of vegetable beef soup but made with hamburger. Quick and easy to make, this is great on a cold day.

Great Grilled Burgers - Learn all the little tips and tricks to make fabulous hamburgers on the grill. Hard to beat a great grilled burger.

Baked Beans with Hamburger - Fancy up the beans with some ground beef. This can be served as the main or a side dish.

Ground Beef

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