12 Ingredients To Give Steak Tartare A Flavor Boost

Steak tartare is one of those archetypal chef dishes, an evergreen restaurant offering — never entirely trendy, but never entirely out of style — that people will eat in that setting, but seldom make at home. That may partly be because raw meat feels like a risky choice, something that's best left to professionals. There's also the whole "ick factor" of handling raw meat, let alone the raw egg that's usually mixed into it.

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That brings us to the question of food safety. As both a trained chef and a former food safety instructor, I can tell you firmly that steak tartare is indeed safe to eat raw for most people, if — and it's a big if — it's prepared correctly. I'm not going to get into how you can make steak tartare at home, because we've already done that. I will add that you should get the best beef you can, and should pay scrupulous attention to cleanliness (take a look at the USDA's guidance on cleanliness and food safety).

I'm going to assume that if you're reading this article you're okay with the whole raw-meat thing, and confident enough to prepare steak tartare at home. So instead of addressing how steak tartare is made, I'm going to suggest 12 ingredients you can use to dial up its flavors.

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1. Fish sauce is the Asian ingredient that makes your beef taste dry-aged

Plain beef has a low-key flavor profile. People dance around this, using euphemisms like "understated," but the plain truth is that it's ... bland. A lot of the flavor you associate with beef comes from browning it in a pan, or from the rich fattiness of a good steak. If you're serving it raw, and choosing a lean cut, you can't lean on either of those things.

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One technique that improves beef is dry aging. Dry-aged beef is unique in our modern era of speed and efficiency, where meat production is treated like manufacturing. Instead of the wet-aging supermarket beef gets in its sealed plastic packaging, dry-aged beef is hung in refrigeration for a period of weeks. As it hangs, natural enzymes begin to break down and tenderize the beef, and moisture evaporates from the muscle tissues. Both are important: The enzymes create new, funky flavors; and drying concentrates those flavors just as it does with dried fruit and dried mushrooms.

That funk makes dry-aged beef distinctive, and brings a hit of umami to your steak tartare. Unfortunately it's expensive and hard to find, for home cooks. But that hint of funk, and hit of umami, can be replicated easily with a small splash of your favorite fish sauce. It sounds odd, but Worcestershire is used with steak pretty frequently and it's (in part) anchovy-based, so this is in fact an already-common use for fish sauce.

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2. Top your steak tartare with crispy onions

Where flavor is concerned, onions are one of beef's most reliable friends. The issue with adding them to steak tartare is that cooked onions would be incongruous on raw beef, and uncooked onions are pungent enough to overwhelm the meat's delicate flavors.

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Some recipes use milder chives as a garnish, along with the parley, to tick that box. Chives are indeed a useful option, but consider adding crunchy fried onions as a topping, instead. Technically they're cooked, but they're cooked so far past the point of "just cooked" that they don't feel like a regular onion anymore. They still bring a mild onion flavor, but unlike chives they'll also add a pleasing textural contrast. You can put a light sprinkling on top of the tartare, surrounding the egg yolk, or mound them at the side of the plate, whichever you prefer.

You may already keep fried onions in your pantry (they're not just for green bean casserole), and that supermarket staple works just fine. You could also use the more natural kind of crispy fried onions (or shallots) sold at Indian and Asian markets. Alternatively, you could even make your own quick fried onions in the microwave, or do them the traditional way, low and slow in a skillet until they're crisp, brown, and caramelized.

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3. Replace the parsley in your steak tartare with nori

Parsley is one of the standard garnishes for steak tartare, and it serves a couple of purposes. For one, although parsley's own flavor is decidedly low key, it helps enhance the flavors of the foods around it. Also, of course, it adds a pleasing color contrast.

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Those are both good things, but you can have the same effect with other ingredients. Consider toasted nori sheets, for example. A handful of crumbled nori makes an interestingly unconventional garnish for the raw beef, but it serves the same two purposes. You'll still have an eye-pleasing green garnish in and on your beef, and nori is packed with umami that will enhance the taste of the beef and its dressing.

If you opt for the small snack-sized nori sheets, you can take this a step further. Steak tartare is usually served with some sort of crispy bread or other carb, to spread it on and provide some textural contrast. With these small nori sheets, you can place a scoop of the tartare on the nori and roll it up, as you would in these tuna salad nori wraps. It's a tasty departure from the traditional serving options, and any friends who can't have gluten (or are counting carbs) will love it.

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4. Choose a favorite hot sauce as your secret ingredient

The dressing ingredients in classic steak tartare provide acidity and pepperiness with the Worcestershire sauce and Dijon mustard, as well as (of course) the black pepper. One quick and easy way to take things up a notch is the use of a favorite hot sauce.

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You probably already have a favorite or two, with a similar mixture of acidity, heat, and savory flavors. You should already have a good mental idea of how those flavors are balanced in the tartare (it's not like Worcestershire and Dijon are uncommon ingredients), so try to pick a sauce that provides a similarly even-handed combination of flavors. You don't necessarily need to have a specialist market nearby, the best grocery store hot sauces give you plenty of options to consider.

The big thing to bear in mind, if you go this route, is to have a light hand with the sauce. The goal is to enliven the flavors of the beef and garnishes, remember, not to overwhelm them. A small splash is usually all you need, and it's perfectly okay to bring that bottle of sauce to the table for those who want more.

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5. Serve your tartare with good kimchi

This is admittedly a left-field option, and traditionalists will hate it, but hear me out. Think about what works with steak tartare, and then what kimchi brings to the table. Acidity and heat? Check. Textural contrast? Check. Plenty of umami? Check. A combination even your most jaded friends won't have seen before? You betcha.

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The best kimchi brands (or better yet, homemade kimchi or a batch from a local artisan producer) bring a high-impact set of flavors, from chili heat to a big umami hit and a bit of funk from fermentation. It's all the things we've talked about with the standard additions (Worcestershire, Dijon, capers, pickles), just in a somewhat different form. You just need to adjust your thinking to make room for it.

There are a couple of ways you can do this. The simplest is just to serve a small spoonful of kimchi alongside the tartare, where it can be added to each bite at the diner's discretion. Alternatively, you can finely chop some of the kimchi and add it along with (or instead of) the capers and parsley, and mix it throughout the beef.

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6. Add charred ripe tomatoes to the plate

Summer is a great time for steak tartare. It's a fine appetizer, or even a light lunch, that doesn't need any cooking and therefore won't heat up your kitchen. And of course, everybody loves grazing a spread of cold foods on a hot day.

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One of the other advantages of summer for steak tartare is that you can take advantage of summer's fresh ingredients, like really ripe tomatoes. Whether you have a garden of your own, or just hit the farmers market on a regular basis, perfect tomatoes are one of the best ingredients summer has to offer. I keep a fair-sized garden, and I can tell you that grilled heirloom tomatoes are a great summer side dish.

Charring tomatoes on your grill (or under the broiler when the weather isn't cooperating) intensifies their flavors, and adds a pleasing whiff of smokiness. That blast of tomato flavor and umami, and the hint of smoke, is an ideal accompaniment for steak tartare. You might shape the tartare atop a big slice of charred tomato, or serve one alongside, or even dice the tomato and mound or mold it artistically alongside the beef. However you pair them, it's a winning combination.

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7. Smoked salt is an easy upgrade for steak tartare

Beef has a happy ability to play well with a lot of different flavors, starting with basic salt and pepper and going up from there. Steak tartare already incorporates those and more, but some flavors are a little more interesting to fit into the picture.

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One of those is smoke. Anybody who's ever grilled a steak knows that a whiff of smoke does wonders for beef, but how do you add smoke (which implies fire, and cooking) to the raw beef of steak tartare? Well, you have a few options, but the simplest is smoked salt. You'll find the widest range of choices through specialty online retailers, but even ordinary supermarkets should carry a brand or two of salt that's been smoked over apple or other hardwoods.

It's a near-magical ingredient, one that can bring a smoky flavor to your cocktails or make mushrooms taste like bacon. In tartare, using smoked salt in place of regular table salt adds a subtle, delicate hint of smokiness that elevates the flavors of the beef and its add-ins. Alternatively you might consider a generous pinch of smoked paprika, which has a similar effect and adds its characteristic sweet-pepper flavor as well.

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8. Infused oils subtly flavor your tartare

If you're known as a foodie within your circle of friends, you probably receive a lot of food-related gifts. Often those gifts come in the form of flavor-infused oils, which are usually positioned as a "gourmet" ingredient. You may even infuse your own olive oil.

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Infused oils are a versatile way to add flavor to any dish, and steak tartare is a prime candidate. Many recipes already call for adding a splash of oil to the beef, especially if you start with an extra-lean cut, so using a flavored oil instead of a plain one is a no-brainer. Most are infused with garlic or fresh herbs, chilis, black pepper, or citrus, and any of those can work well (in moderation) with steak tartare. Taste the oil on its own, first, to see how strong its flavors are. Sometimes the oil may be oxidized and past its prime, and you certainly want to know that before you add it to your beef.

One oil I don't recommend is truffle oil, which is artificially flavored and contains no real truffle at all; just a pungent and unsubtle flavoring that can overwhelm your tartare. To be clear, some oils are genuinely infused with scraps of real black or white truffle. Those are relatively costly (especially if they contain white truffle), but a few drops added to your tartare can make it memorable. Just be sure they're from France or Italy, because many oils use bland Chinese black truffles (a different species altogether).

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9. Brighten the beef simply with Tajín seasoning

There are times when it's fun to fuss with a meal, and get everything just exactly the way you like it. Then there are times when you already have enough on your plate (so to speak) and you're happy to settle for just a quick tweak.

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Steak tartare can fit into either category, depending on your mood and your personality. If you're happy to spend time mincing fresh ingredients and tasting to see how they affect your tartare, then great! Keep up the good work. But if you just want to get it on the table while it's still fresh and cold, you might be open to a shortcut. And in that case, Tajín seasoning can be an easy and very simple way to elevate the dish just a smidge.

Tajín's signature combination of citrus-sour, mild chili heat, and saltiness ticks all the right boxes as a complement to steak tartare. While the seasoning began life as a way to commercialize a family recipe, its versatility and ease of use have made it a global favorite. You can either mix a few pinches directly into the meat itself, or shake it over the finished dish when it's served (and leave the shaker on the table for those who want it). I'm a "shake it over the finished dish" guy, myself, but you do you.

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10. Consider adding MSG (yes, seriously)

Before I ever began writing the article I knew this suggestion would be controversial, but bear with me. Yes, I know MSG has been demonized for decades, but in recent years the pendulum has swung the other way. In truth there was never good evidence that MSG is bad for you, and its prevalence in our food supply makes that argument pretty forcefully.

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The reality is that many fresh ingredients, like tomatoes, celery, and mushrooms, contain naturally occurring glutamates. In fact, it was originally made from seaweed and is now produced through fermentation of starchy foods. So if you've been under the impression that it's some kind of chemical additive (that's arguably the biggest misconception about MSG), you've been misinformed. What it is, in fact, is just the distilled essence of umami.

A small pinch of any commercial MSG seasoning from the supermarket is all it takes to enhance the flavors of not just the beef, but all of the other ingredients in your steak tartare. If you've ever tasted a meal and said to yourself, "it needs something, but I don't know what," well, this is your answer.

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11. MIx a flavorful aioli into the beef

Most recipes for beef tartare call for a dressing made with Worcestershire sauce and Dijon mustard, whisked together with an egg yolk and sometimes a tablespoon or two of olive oil. That combination corresponds pretty closely to the ingredients in mayonnaise-style dressings.

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It's no great leap, then, to consider using a boldly flavored aioli as a substitute for (or complement to) the usual ingredients. The first thing to know about aioli is that while it's similar to mayonnaise, it doesn't usually start with an egg. The purest versions are an emulsion of oil and garlic, and just a little bit will go a long way in your steak tartare.

Aioli became a trendy favorite earlier this century, so you'll find all kinds of variations on the theme. Most, to be blunt, are just flavored versions of mayonnaise, but that's fine for our purposes as long as it brings the flavor. You won't use much, remember, so it needs to count. You aren't making the raw-beef equivalent of chicken salad, here, so just a small dollop is all you need.

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12. Make your steak tartare à l'italienne

If you're already a veteran consumer (or maker) of steak tartare, you're familiar with the classic version. But there are lots of other recognized variations, even in France.

In fact, if you're unpersuaded that bringing ingredients to steak tartare from other culinary cultures is a good idea, I'll point out that this is exactly what the French themselves do. One case in point is steak tartare "à l'italienne." This version has a simple and distinctive flavor profile, drawing on the fresh, clean flavors of basil, lemon, tomatoes, and usually Parmesan cheese. The tomatoes and Parm bring the umami, while lemon juice adds bright acidity and the basil lends the dish its signature fresh herbal note.

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If you routinely keep a jar of store-bought pesto in your fridge (as I do) or make your own fresh pesto during gardening season (as I also do, while it lasts), you can lean on your pesto to make a quick and dirty version of steak tartare à l'italienne. Just stir a spoonful of pesto into your beef, along with a splash of lemon juice, and it will taste very similar but require a lot less effort.

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