A quick and tasty weeknight meal, Pepper Steak is the perfect combination of tender meat, colorful bell peppers, and fresh tomatoes dripping in a savory asian-inspired sauce. Serve over rice for a healthy AND delicious stir-fry dinner!
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Tender, melt in your mouth steak ✅
Colorful, healthy veggies ✅
Easy to make on a crazy night ✅
Makes fantastic leftovers ✅
Can be prepped or frozen ahead ✅
What more could you ask for? Pepper steak over rice is super simple to pull together and meets every qualification for the BEST weeknight meal. Serve it alongside a bowl of white or brown rice and you’re good to go! Or cauliflower rice for a lower carb option.
This easy Pepper Steak recipe has a well known story in our family. As a kid, my dad would often explore the desert near his house. One day while exploring his mom and him stumbled across an old Great American recipe card for Spicy Pepper Steak. Back in that time the grocery store only sold red bell pepper and green bell pepper. Now we get the full rainbow!
True to her adventurous spirit, his mom went home and made this delicious recipe… and they loved it! The recipe card is still in the family today, two generations later. Just goes to show that great recipes really can come from anywhere.
🥩 Ingredient list
Flank steak: This is the best cut of meat for this recipe, but you can substitute with skirt steak, top round, or top sirloin steak.
Soy sauce: The main marinade ingredient that adds flavor and helps the meat get nice and tender. We use regular soy sauce but feel free to use low sodium soy sauce if desired.
Garlic: Fresh garlic is so much better in this recipe that garlic powder.
Paprika: I don't suggest using smoked paprika for this recipe. Just regular paprika will do.
Ground ginger: A little goes a long way. You can substitute fresh if needed.
Vegetable oil: Or canola oil.
Bell pepper strips: We use red, yellow, orange, or green bell peppers. The green peppers are not as lightly flavored as the sweet peppers but are still quite delicious. Feel free to use your family's favorite colors, they're all good!
Celery: Chopped small for extra veggies and texture.
Cornstarch: Just a bit to thicken the sauce at the end.
Water: Mix with the cornstarch to create the sauce.
Tomatoes: Fresh tomatoes go in at the very end for a touch of fresh, bright flavor. Feel free to use roma tomatoes, on-the-vine tomatoes, or cherry tomatoes.
🔪 How to make pepper steak stir-fry?
Slice flank steak correctly: If you want to know how to make pepper steak tender, this is the most important part. Slice the meat into thin slices, about ¼ inch thick, against the grain.
When you look at the meat, you will notice it has long strands all running one direction. This is the grain. You want to cut the meat in the exact opposite direction, or perpendicular to the grain, for super tender meat.
Marinate and drain meat: Combine the marinade ingredients and let the meat marinate in a bowl or zip bag for at least 30 minutes, but ideally longer. When it's time to cook, drain the meat really well over a bowl, but keep the marinade! This becomes the yummy sauce later on.
Pro tip: If you double the meat and marinade portion of the recipe, the next time you are looking for a quick stir-fry, just thaw and cook. This is one of my favorite meal prep recipes for busy nights.
Quick Sear: In a hot large skillet (I use a large electric non stick skillet)(affiliate link), cook the meat over medium-high heat in a single layer until it's beautifully brown and almost cooked through. Remove the meat and do the same with the veggies, cooking until they are tender-crisp.
Make the sauce: First, dissolve the cornstarch and cold water together in a small bowl. And now for the best part! Put the meat, veggies, leftover marinade, water, and cornstarch all back in the skillet. Within just a few minutes you'll have a thickened and bubbly savory sauce that smells soooo good. Top with fresh tomatoes and you're ready to serve this delicious stir fry over rice!
My family loves this great recipe even more than the one at our local Chinese restaurant.
👨👩👧👦 For a crowd
This recipe already serves 8. If you are wanting to make it for more than 8 people, I highly suggest cooking the meat and veggies in two skillets at the same time. This will help avoid overcrowding the pans and make sure it doesn't take extra long to cook.
🙋 Questions & Answers
You can very easily prep this recipe a day in advance. Marinate the meat in the fridge overnight, then slice up the veggies and store in an air-tight container. When you're ready to cook, just continue the recipe as directed.
This is a great meal to have ready in the freezer. Slice the meat as directed, mix it with the marinade in a ziploc bag, and freeze it in an airtight container just like that. When you’re ready to make it, thaw the meat overnight in the fridge or for several hours on the counter. Then just slice the fresh veggies and cook it up in a jiffy!
Pepper steak can be too tough if you use the wrong cut of meat or cut the meat incorrectly. The key to tender pepper steak is to start with flank steak, top round, or sirloin steaks. Then slice the meat against the grain (perpendicular to the long fibers in the meat). I promise it will be tender this way!
We serve our pepper steak over rice - either brown or white. The dish is filling and full of protein and veggies, so I rarely need to serve sides with it. Makes for an easy dinner!
The best steak for pepper steak is wither flank steak or top sirloin. The top sirloin will be more tender if it's allowed to marinate for at least 8 hours. Flank steak is naturally more tender and does not require extra marination time to be soft.
👨🏼🍳 Tips & Tricks
- Slice the meat against the grain (perpendicular to the long muscle fibers in the meat). This is the secret to soft, tender meat!
- For the best flavor, marinade the meat on the longer end of the directed range.
- Make sure to drain the meat very well. This is a game changer! Excess marinade will slow the cooking and prevent it from browning well.
- For the best browning, allow the pan to get very hot before cooking. Then add the meat in a single layer and stir it as little as possible. The less stirring of the meat, the better the browning.
📖 More weeknight dinner ideas
- Electric Skillet Lemon Chicken - An easy one skillet dinner of tender chicken covered in a lemony pan sauce.
- Easy Chicken Tinga Tacos - This easy meal is a rotisserie chicken shredded that's coated in a smoky tinga sauce, then made into delicious tacos.
- Tri-tip in the Slow Cooker - Tri tip roast that's been seasoned cooked in beef broth in a crock pot. Serve with mashed potatoes for a hearty meal!
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📋 Recipe
Pepper Steak
Ingredients
Marinade
- 3 lbs flank steak *can substitute top round or sirloin steaks
- ⅔ cup soy sauce
- 1 tablespoon garlic minced
- 2 teaspoon paprika
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- ⅔ cup vegetable oil
Pepper Steak
- 3 medium bell peppers any color, cored, seeded, and sliced
- 1½ cup celery diced
- 1½ cups water
- 2 tablespoon cornstarch
- 2 cups fresh tomatoes diced
- Salt if needed to taste
Instructions
- Trim excess fat from meat and slice thinly against the grain. Combine marinade ingredients and marinate meat in a bowl or zipper bag for a minimum of 30 minutes or up to 24 hours.
- Before cooking, use a strainer to drain meat well. Reserve the marinade for the sauce.
- Spray a skillet lightly with non-stick spray or oil and heat over medium-high. Add meat in a single layer and allow to cook until browned and almost cooked through, stirring minimally, 7-8 minutes. If meat does not fit in a single layer, cook in two batches. *If meat releases a lot of juices while cooking, remove it from the pan, pour juices out of pan into reserved marinade, and return the meat to the pan to continue cooking.
- Remove meat from pan. Add 1 tablespoon vegetable oil and cook bell peppers and celery. Cook until tender-crisp, 3-5 minutes.
- In a small bowl, mix water and cornstarch together. Add water mixture, reserved marinade juices, and cooked meat back to the skillet with the veggies. Cook until the sauce is thickened, 1-2 minutes.
- Stir in fresh tomatoes and salt, if needed. Serve over rice.
- We love comments! Please come back and leave us one after you’ve tried this recipe.
Notes
- Slice the meat against the grain (perpendicular to the long fibers in the meat). This is the secret to soft, tender meat!
- For the best flavor, marinade the meat on the longer end of the directed range.
- Make sure to drain the meat very well. Excess marinade will slow the cooking and prevent it from browning well.
- For the best browning, allow the pan to get very hot before cooking. Then add the meat in a single layer and stir it as little as possible. The less stirring of the meat, the better the browning.
Nutrition
All nutrition information is provided by a third party and is an estimate only. Use your own nutritional calculator for more specific measurements.
Phyllis says
Just cooked this again. We really like it a lot and will be putting into our plans again in a fe2 weeks. The flavor is great and the r3vipe is a definite keeper!
Misty says
Yay, glad you liked it!
Phyllis says
WINNER!! We were knocked over with the GREAT savory flavor and tenderness of the meat. And the veggies were tender crisp.
Your photography makes it all come alive and your tips are priceless.
Thanks for all your hard work to make me look like a great cook. Love it 😍
Cheri says
I ate dinner at my parents’ house tonight, and my Mom made this pepper steak. All I could keep saying is YUM!!!! The flavors are outstanding! I felt like Bob, in the movie What About Bob, when he was eating with the fam and he kept saying, “Mmmmm...Mmmmm...Mmmmmmmm!” I really enjoyed this dish. It truly is CRAZY GOOD!
Ringo says
This is delish!
Aspen says
The fresh tomatoes in this dish are mouth-watering good. This is on my regular meals list!