Tender Beef Tips and Rice is a comforting recipe full of rich flavor that the whole family is sure to love.
This amazing comfort food dish is popular in New England and is essentially tender beef simmered in brown gravy. I love it best served over rice, but it’s also nice over egg noodles, mashed potatoes, or on toasted bread.
Scroll down to read more about how it all comes together or click here to jump straight down to the recipe.
Video: Cooking Beef Tips and Gravy
What Are Beef Tips?
Like with my Steak Tips recipe, you can use either sirloin steak or tri-tip steak cut into 1-inch pieces. These are both wonderfully tender cuts of meat when they’re simmered in a sauce.
Some beef tip recipes call for stew beef, which can be used in a pinch. However, that usually comes from a chuck roast or rump roast and won’t be quite as fork tender since it’s a tougher cut of meat that benefits from a longer, slower cook than we’re doing here.
If you’re looking to cook Beef Strips, which are often used in stir-fries or beef stroganoff, that’s usually made from a different cut but cooked in a similar way.
How To Make Beef Tips
To make this beef and gravy dish, first cut your beef into 1 inch cubes so they are in nice bite size pieces. If you’re using a chunky piece of meat like the tri-tip shown above, you’ll be able to get true cubes. If you’re using something thinner like the sirloin steaks, you’ll get the meat into 1 to 1.5 inch pieces, and they won’t end up being as thick (they’ll be however thick the steak was), like in the picture below. That’s totally fine for this recipe.
Season the meat with salt, pepper, and paprika and then toss it in flour so the cubes are well coated. Heat some oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add in half of the beef tips in a single layer. Allow them to cook until browned underneath before moving them, about 3 minutes. Flip the pieces over and cook another 2-3 minutes to brown the other side. Transfer the cooked beef to a plate and repeat with the remaining steak pieces.
Once all the steak is out of the skillet, add the onion and bell pepper and cook those just until they’re starting to brown. Then add in your garlic and cook an additional 30 seconds.
Stir in beef broth or stock and deglaze the pan, scraping up any browned bits stuck to the pan. Stir in the Worcestershire sauce and then add the browned beef back to the skillet.
Bring to a boil and then reduce to a simmer. Cover your skillet and let cook for 30 minutes, giving it a good stir occasionally.
While the beef simmers, make your Beurre Manié, which will thicken the sauce. I’ve explained this method in further detail below. After the beef tips have cooked for 30 minutes, the Beurre Manié will get added to the simmering liquid and will thicken it up with a few minutes of simmering.
How To Thicken The Sauce
Like with many stew-type dishes, the gravy for beef tips is usually thickened at the end of cooking with flour or cornstarch. You can’t add flour or cornstarch directly to a hot simmering liquid though because it immediately forms lumps. Instead you have to mix it with something else so that it can disperse more smoothly. Usually, this a flour or cornstarch slurry is used to accomplish this. A slurry is simply when you mix the flour or cornstarch with water or another liquid.
However, when I was developing the recipe, I found that the sauce needed a bit more meatiness and some lushness. I therefore didn’t want to dilute it with any water or other liquid at all. I decided to try thickening it using a French technique called Beurre Manié, which is French for “kneaded butter”.
For this technique, the thickening agent, flour, is mixed with softened butter instead of with water. Then you dollop that soft dough of flour and butter into the sauce at the end. The butter helps the flour to not clump up. The butter is also bound to the flour in a way that stops it from forming an oil slick on top, and so it instead incorporates right into the sauce. It’s delicious! You can read more about this technique in my recipe for Braised Oxtails too.
Cooking The Rice
You’ll cook the rice for this dish while the meat simmers. It’s best to try to time it so that the rice is ready a few minutes before the beef is done simmering. Then simply remove the pot of rice from the stove and leave the lid on to keep it warm.
You can also cook the rice in the Instant Pot. After doing the quick release, leave the pot on Keep Warm and the rice will stay perfect until you need it.
More Delicious Beef Dinners
- Grilled Beef Ribs
- Beef Noodle Skillet
- Salisbury Steak
- Slow Cooker Beef Stroganoff
- Beef and Potato Skillet Dinner
- Chimichurri Skirt Steak
Enjoy! – Christine xo
Podcast Episode About Making Beef Tips and Rice
Listen to me explain briefly about how to make these steak tips, along with some other great tips, by clicking the play button below:
Listen to more Recipe of the Day episodes here.
Print
Beef Tips and Rice Recipe
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 1 hour
- Total Time: 1 hour 10 minutes
- Yield: 4 servings 1x
- Category: Entrée
- Method: Stovetop
- Cuisine: American
DESCRIPTION
Tender Beef Tips and Rice is a comforting recipe full of rich flavor that the whole family is sure to love.
Ingredients
- 1 lb. top sirloin or tri-tip beef
- 1 tsp. salt
- 1/2 tsp. black pepper
- 1/2 tsp. paprika
- 4 Tbsp. flour, divided
- 4 tsp. cooking oil, divided
- 1 medium onion, chopped
- 1 bell pepper, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 and 1/2 cups beef stock
- 2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
- 2 Tbsp. butter, softened
- 1 cup uncooked long-grained white rice
Instructions
- Cut the beef into 1 inch cubes. Season with the salt, pepper, and paprika.
- Measure 2 tablespoons of the flour into a large bowl. Add the seasoned beef and toss to coat. Discard any flour that doesn’t adhere to the beef.
- Heat 2 teaspoons of the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add half of the beef in a single layer and allow to cook undisturbed until browned on the bottom, about 3 minutes. Flip all the pieces over and cook until browned underneath, another 2-3 minutes. Transfer beef to a plate and set aside.
- Repeat step 2 using the remaining 2 teaspoons of oil and the remaining beef.
- Once all of the beef has been seared and transferred to a plate, add the onion and bell pepper to the skillet. Stir and cook until just starting to brown, 2-3 minutes. Add the garlic and cook for 30 seconds.
- Stir in the beef stock and use it to help scrape up any bits of beef, flour, or vegetable stuck to the skillet. Stir in the Worcestershire sauce. Add all of the browned beef to the skillet and stir.
- Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce to a simmer. Cover and cook for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.
- While the beef simmers, make your sauce thickener by combining the softened butter and the remaining 2 tablespoons of flour in a small bowl just until they come together into a smooth, soft dough. Set aside.
- Also while the beef simmers, cook the rice according to package directions. Once it’s cooked, remove from heat but leave the lid on and it will stay warm.
- After the beef mixture has simmered for the 30 minutes, remove the lid and stir. Break the butter dough into about 6 pieces and drop it into the simmering liquid. Stir it immediately to melt it in.
- Allow the sauce to come back to a simmer and to thicken, 2-3 minutes. If sauce is too thick for your preference, you can add a bit of extra beef stock or water. Then taste the sauce and season with salt and pepper, if needed.
- Serve over the hot cooked rice.
Love this recipe? I’d appreciate it if you could scroll down and add a *5 star rating* to help others know they’ll love it as well!
This was delicious. Made it for my husband and me and we both loved it. I’m going to use beurre manié every time I can!
Thanks!
I’m so happy to hear that, Roberta! Thank you for coming back to comment.