Cooking Tips

Cook an Entire Steak Dinner in Your Oven

Yes, it's possible to make steakhouse-quality steaks plus two sides, all at once.
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Published Sept. 21, 2021.

We love the ease of a sheet-pan dinner. We also love the flavor and texture of a perfectly cooked steak. Like Captain Planet, we knew we could create something delicious by their powers combined.

The goal: an expertly cooked steak plus two sides of sweet potatoes and scallions, prepared on one pan and ready at the same time.

We achieve this by roasting the steaks alongside the vegetables, all on the same pan. Generally, roasting steaks wouldn’t achieve the beautiful sear that a preheated skillet or grill provides. But preheating a sheet pan—while jump-starting the roasting of your sweet potatoes—and coating the steak in a smoky-savory dry rub promotes browning on the steaks’ surface and boosts flavor.

You can see the technique and the whole recipe, from start to finish, on the season two premiere of our YouTube series Today’s Special hosted by ATK’s Ashley Moore. In this episode, Ashley also offers useful pointers you’ll want to keep in mind while cooking this one-pan steak with sweet potatoes and scallions. (For example, if your well-worn sheet pan has some browning on its sides and bottom, that’s actually a good thing!)

You can watch our step-by-step method here:

Another star of the episode, and the recipe, is the dry rub you’ll prepare for the steaks.

“The dry rub is a mixture of brown sugar, coffee, chili powder, salt, and pepper—a unique combination that gives a teeny tiny bit of bitterness, some smoke, and overall deliciousness,” Ashley explains. “The coffee also helps promote browning on the steaks, since it never sees the heat of a preheated skillet.”

But you won’t miss that skillet once you’ve oven-roasted steaks on a preheated pan. You’ll hear a satisfying sizzle when steak meets sheet pan, letting you know you’re developing a beautiful sear on your steaks.

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And unlike searing on a skillet, roasting steaks in the oven alongside your vegetable sides leaves you with just one pan to clean and eliminates the guesswork required to cook all the components separately.

After just 12 to 15 minutes, you’ll remove your fragrant, perfectly cooked steaks, potatoes, and scallions from the oven. Tent the steaks with aluminum foil for 5 minutes to let the meat rest while you divvy up the vegetables, and then you’ll be ready to serve your entire meal at the same time.

Cook this once, and you’ll be a sheet-pan steak-roasting believer.

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