Cooking Steak in a Slow Cooker

April 27 is National Prime Rib Day. Sounds delicious. But if you're like me, you might be running a little short, so prime rib is off the menu until at least the next paycheck. On the other hand, here's something I tried this week that is really easy, really delicious, and really affordable. Steak in the slow cooker.

I cook a lot of stuff in the slow cooker: chicken, ribs, roast, all the usual suspects. I've always thought about trying to do steak, but was kind of afraid that it wouldn't turn out very good, and then I would have wasted a steak. But I finally decided to take the plunge and I'm really glad I did. (Note, steak in the picture is not the actual steak I cooked - I didn't think to take a picture until after it was too late.)

Since I wasn't sure this would work, I decided to use a less expensive cut of meat and went for a chuck steak. I also needed less than a full can of beer, so unless you can finish the rest of the can, which is a little hard to do at 11 a.m., use cheap beer. Here's how I went about making steak in my slow cooker.

Ingredients

• Chuck steak
• Can of beer
• Salt
• Pepper
• Garlic powder
• Vegetable oil

Season the steak with salt, pepper and garlic powder. Place the steak in the slow cooker and add just enough beer to barely cover. I also added extra seasoning to the beer. In slow cooker recipes, half the seasoning ends up in the liquid, so you have to put in extra.

I set the slow cooker to low and let it go all day. I didn't make it home until later than expected, so it cooked for over six hours, which was almost too long, but it turned out fine. You just want to make sure you take the steak out of the slow cooker before it falls completely apart.

After I got home I heated up some vegetable oil in a pan (use whatever type of oil you have handy). I removed the steak and patted it dry with paper towels. Once the oil and pan were hot, I seared the steak until I got a good crust on each side. And that was it.

I also heated up a can of green beans, but drained the water from the can and instead cooked the beans using some of the liquid left over in the slow cooker. Leave it to me to find a way to make vegetables less healthy. They were great. The steak was great. I'll be making slow cooker steak for dinner again.