Peanut Butter Coated Steak Is So Wild It Might Just Work

You've slathered peanut butter onto sandwiches and maybe even used the empty jars to make burger patties, but now get ready for a new introduction of flavors. Coating your next cut of steak with your favorite smooth or crunchy peanut butter spread could be the surprising preparation your backyard barbecues have been missing. We're not talking about a mere drizzle of peanut satay sauce. This involves either marinating or sous viding your steaks with peanut butter and giving the meat a quick rub down before placing them onto the grill. The result? A tender and pleasantly nutty cut of steak cooked to perfection. 

We can thank or blame (whichever applies) Sous Vide Everything for the trend. Inspired by Vietnamese cuisine, the cook's experiment involved lightly salted and seasoned prime ribeyes dressed with a coating of smooth peanut butter. After placing the cuts into a plastic bag to submerge in a water bath, then flame-broiling the steaks to perfection, the results earned enthusiastic reviews from the chef and his friends. Though the peanut butter taste is mild on the cooked meat, the process resulted in a softer bite of steak. 

Inspired by the idea, Serious Eats set out to conduct a similar peanut butter experiment, concluding that the sugars from peanut butter help create a darker crust on the outside of cooked steaks, but the smell of peanut butter can be off-putting to some steak lovers. While the Serious Eats experiment didn't earn the same praise as Sous Vide Everything, the concept of cooking steak with peanut butter is well received by plenty of other chefs and meat eaters. Sam the Cooking Guy describes the combination as "freaking delicious," and Pitmaster X brushes sauce made with Dutch Calvé peanut butter onto smoked tomahawk steaks to serve dishes to friends who gush over the tender cuts of meat.

If you need to warm yourself up to the idea of basting your next hunks of steak with nutty spread you more commonly spread on toast, begin by sautéeing strips of beef to serve with peanut sauce and rice. After one taste of the combination, you'll know which side of the experiment you land on.