Swap Steak Into This Italian-Inspired Dish For A Meatier Meal

A steak dinner doesn't have to be a fancy filet mignon or sirloin, especially if you're making dinner at home for a crowd. There are plenty of cuts of steak that are affordable and versatile enough to incorporate into well-known dishes. For example, swapping steak into a classic chicken parmesan dish is the meatier, richer upgrade you need to try.

The classic Italian-American chicken parmesan already has a vegetarian version, eggplant parmesan, using the same breading, frying, and baking formula. The same applies to steak parmesan, with a few adjustments for cooking times. The best cut of steak for steak Parmesan is cube steak, named for the unique tenderizing machine that leaves square impressions. Cube steak is a budget-friendly cut from the rear of the cow, or round, that's been trimmed of all excess fat and gristle. Known for its lean and tough chew, cube steak is also flavorful and works especially well in dishes like chicken fried steak, which is essentially what we're going for with a chicken parmesan dupe.

You can buy cube steaks already cut into individual-sized slabs, so all you have to do is assemble your dredging station, preheat the oven, and prep your frying pan. You can use our recipe for chicken parmesan to prepare the dry-wet-dry dredging station. Once the steak has been breaded, fry it for a few minutes on each side before adding it to a deep baking pan with homemade or store-bought marinara. Then, bake for an hour at 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

While you can use a chicken parmesan recipe as a rough guideline for the steps you'll take to prep and cook steak parmesan, there are some key steps you'll need to take to ensure the most flavorful and tender results. Cube steak is our choice for steak parmesan, but round steak would also work. Round steak tends to have a fat cap at the bottom and are less tenderized than cube steak, so you'll definitely need to take a mallet to it for further tenderization. For that matter, you can also use a mallet on cube steak to ensure ultra-tender results.

As its name implies, steak parmesan should contain a breading that includes parmesan, but you can also add other complementary seasonings, like dried basil, a packet of Italian seasonings, or even a dash of paprika and cayenne for some smoky heat. For the crispiest breading, you can swap a portion of the flour with cornstarch and blend the eggs with milk or water. Panko breadcrumbs are also touted as a good option for ultra-crispy breading. Once you've dredged the steak, we recommend using a flavorful fat like bacon fat or beef tallow to fry it in, which will bring an extra burst of umami-richness that conventional seed oils lack. If you're using store-bought marinara, we ranked Carbone as our favorite brand, followed closely by Rao's. Bake these steaks in a covered dish with just the tomato sauce, then add shredded or sliced mozzarella and return to the oven uncovered to melt the cheese.