The Summer Fruit You'd Never Think To Pair With Steak

Steak is a hearty dish, but it makes for a great meal, even in the most sweltering months. Whether it's sitting atop a summery salad or sliced and grilled on a kebab stick, the meat is perfect in every season. If you're looking for fresh ways to serve up some steak in the summer, look no further than a Bing cherry sauce.

Savory spices and herbs are typically used to spruce up steaks, but the meat gets a delicious boost with the right choice of fruit. A squeeze of lemon juice or a helping of mandarin oranges gives the meat a tangy upgrade, but cherries were made for steak. Bing cherries, which are different from Rainier cherries, are sweet, with a hint of tartness that balances out the honeyed, savory combination when paired with steak. The cherries have a richness to them that perfectly matches the meat's depth, without being overshadowed by its beefiness, making it one of the best fruit toppings for steak.

When making a cherry marinade or sauce, you can simply puree the fruits with other ingredients and pour them over the steak, or allow everything to simmer. Both methods let the fruits mix with the other flavorings pretty well, but heating the cherries intensifies their taste while allowing it to meld with the other ingredients. After pitting and slicing the cherries, add them to a pot with melted butter, followed by lemon juice, minced garlic, vinegar, salt, and pepper. Let the mixture reduce for a few minutes before spooning it over the cooked steak.

Bing cherries on their own provide steak with an incredibly rich flavor, but it never hurts to spruce it up with a few extra ingredients. If you're looking for other items to complement the cherry sauce with, look at ingredients within a common palate. Balsamic vinegar has a tangy, fruit-like flavor that will elevate your fruit sauce, making the reduction the perfect cherry on top of grilled balsamic flank steak. While the meat marinates in the vinegar, shallot, and rosemary mixture, let the cherries simmer on the stove for 10 minutes.

The summery fruits are perfect with any velvety, rich liquid, and red wine is no exception. Making a cherry wine reduction for your steak provides the meat with a boozy twist, without overshadowing the deep flavor of the cherries. Opt for a wine with prominent red fruit notes, like Pinot Noir or Merlot. Puree the cherries and simmer them with wine, minced shallots and garlic, and rosemary until the mixture reduces to a syrupy sauce.

To really get the flavors of the cherries and beef to meld together, braise them for a few hours. Tough cuts like flank steak or braising steak turn tender and rich during hours of simmering, especially when the cherries burst and release their sweet juices. After browning each side of your steak, add beef broth, sliced cherries, Dijon mustard, pearl onions, thyme, and balsamic vinegar to a Dutch oven and let everything simmer for a few hours.