Recipe updated: October 24th, 2024
This tasty pepper steak recipe with onions and tomatoes is a quick and easy recipe to make for your family to enjoy at dinnertime. With delicious seasonings, and lots of vegetables, it is superb!
After browning the steak, we add the veggies and simmer it in soy sauce and seasonings for about 50 minutes. It is then topped with tomato slices, simmered for a few more minutes, and then served over a bed of rice. Excellent side dishes are mac and cheese, garlic bread, or a lettuce salad.
🥩 Key Ingredients
- 2 pounds of sirloin steak (or your choice of steak)
- 3 cups of water
- 1 and 1/2 cups of uncooked white rice
- 4 medium fresh tomatoes
- 1 medium onion
- 1 yellow bell pepper
- 1 red bell pepper
- 1 orange bell pepper
- 2 tablespoons of olive oil or your favorite vegetable oil
- 2 tablespoons of soy sauce
- 2 tablespoons of corn starch
- 1/4 teaspoon of Lawry’s seasoned salt
- 1/8 teaspoon of salt
- 1/8 teaspoon of ground black pepper
- 1/8 teaspoon of garlic salt
👩🍳 How to Make Pepper Steak Recipe with Onions and Tomatoes
These step-by-step instructions are accompanied by detailed photos for enhanced clarity and guidance.
Step 1. Slice the Vegetables
Slice the onion in strips. Rinse the yellow, orange, and red bell peppers under cold running water. After that, cut the bell peppers into slices. Then, cut the four tomatoes into fourths. Set the veggies aside for now.
Step 2. Cut up the Steak
To begin with, trim and discard any fat from the sirloin steak. Then cut the beef steak into thin slices, thin strips, or thin cubes. You can cut the beef steak however you prefer, just make sure they are on the thin side versus thick slices or cubes.
Step 3. Put Oil and Steak in the Skittle
Add 2 tablespoons of olive oil or your favorite vegetable oil to a large skillet, then add the cut sliced steak. Sprinkle 1/8 teaspoon of salt, 1/8 teaspoon of black pepper, 1/8 teaspoon of garlic salt, and 1/4 teaspoon of Lawry’s seasoned salt on top of the steak.
Step 4. Brown the Steak
Turn the burner on medium-high heat. With a heat-resistant spatula turner, turn the sliced beef steak in the skittle while browning all sides of the meat. This should take about 20 minutes or so, or until the steak is browned to your liking.
Step 5. Add Water and the Onions
After browning the steak, add about 2 cups of water (we will need more water later) to the frying pan, then add the cut-up onion slices on the top of the steak. Bring to a boil, then turn the burner down to low heat and simmer for about 7 minutes.
Tip: If you want super tender steak that is easier to chew, simmer the steak in the water for about an hour or more before adding any vegetables. Also, you would need to add more water as it evaporates from the skillet during simmering.
Step 6. Toss in the Bell Peppers
After 7 minutes, add the slices of yellow, orange, and red peppers together with the steak and onions in the frying pan. Then, simmer for 20 more minutes. At this time, prepare the white rice using the directions on the package.
Note: Also at this time, if the water level is low in the frying pan, add one more cup of water. The water level should be just slightly above the steak and vegetables.
Step 7. Prepare the Soy Sauce
While the steak mixture is simmering on the stove, put 2 tablespoons of corn starch in a small bowl together with 2 tablespoons of soy sauce. Mix all together with a spoon.
Step 8. Add the Corn Starch Mixture
While you are simmering the steak and bell peppers in the skillet, be sure to check the water level. The water level should slightly cover the steak and vegetables. Add any water now if you need to.
After that, slowly add the corn starch and soy sauce mixture to the skillet. Continue to simmer until the water thickens into a slightly brown sauce. This should only take a couple of minutes.
Step 9. Put Tomatoes in Skillet
Place the tomatoes on top of the steak, onions, and bell peppers while the sauce thickens. While still simmering, mix the tomatoes together with the rest of the ingredients to get them warmed up and tender. When done, serve over a bed of cooked rice. There are different types of rice to chose from, for example, white rice, brown rice, short grain, or long grain, so you can use your favorite.
Tip: The more you simmer the steak, as mentioned above, the more tender the steak will be, and also the sauce will get thicker, which is a good thing, but we don’t want the sauce to get too thick. If the sauce ingredients become too thick, add a little more water to thin it.
🛒 Recipe Variations
- You can use different cuts of beef, but try to pick the best cut of beef if possible. For examples, top round steak, beef eye of round, flank steak, or tenderloin are good choices for this recipe, although tenderloin is a bit more expensive.
- Add sliced green bell peppers.
- Sprinkle some red pepper flakes on your serving of pepper steak.
- Chop up some green onions and toss them in the pepper steak right before it’s ready to serve.
- If you like Worcestershire sauce, go ahead and add a tablespoon or two when you add the other seasonings.
- If you don’t like tomatoes, they can be omitted from this recipe.
❓ FAQs for Pepper Steak Recipe with Onions and Tomatoes
Store leftovers in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Try to eat up the leftover pepper steak within the next day or two.
A meat mallet is a tool you hold in your hand to beat meat, suck as steak and the like. In other words, it’s just like if you were hammering a nail in a piece of wood, but instead, you are hitting the meat with it. I guess you could call it a meat beater. By hitting the meat with a meat mallet, it flattens the meat, breaks down the muscle fibers, and tenderizes it.
Lay the meat in a single layer on a cutting board or hard surface. Start hitting the meat on one side, and then turn the meat over to the other side. It only takes about 2-3 minutes, but you can go a bit longer than that if you prefer.
If you have one, you can use it on the steak you are using for this recipe, if you want the steak to be extra tender. You can buy one in the kitchen utensil section of a grocery store, or stores such as Walmart, or Target. A meat mallet is also sold online.
🕵️ Final Thoughts
This is an easy pepper steak recipe to make with a savory sauce surrounded by sliced tomatoes and crisp bell peppers, which compliment the steak nicely.
The next time you are looking for a delicious recipe to make for dinner, this one is sure to please. Not only is this homemade version of pepper steak simple to make and tastes fantastic, but it only uses one pan to cook it in, which makes for an easy clean-up afterward. We love the thickened pepper steak sauce in this recipe, which will soak into the bed of white rice.
📁 Recipe Card
Pepper Steak Recipe with Onions and Tomatoes
🫕 Equipment
- Meat mallet (optional)
🧂 Ingredients
- 2 lb sirloin steak (or your choice of steak)
- 3 cups Water (about 3 cups)
- 1 ½ cups long grain rice (uncooked – white)
- 4 medium tomatoes
- 1 medium onion
- 1 yellow bell pepper
- 1 red bell pepper
- 1 orange bell pepper
- 2 tbsp olive oil (or your favorite vegetable oil)
- 2 tbsp soy sauce
- 2 tbsp corn starch
- 1/4 tsp Lawry's seasoned salt
- 1/8 tsp table salt
- 1/8 tsp ground black pepper
- 1/8 tsp garlic salt
👩🍳 Instructions
- Cut the onion, the yellow, red, and orange bell peppers into slices, and the tomatoes into fourths. Set aside for now.
- Trim the fat from the steak.
- Cut the steak into strips.
- Heat the oil in a frying pan on medium-high heat. Add the steak.
- Add the seasonings.
- Brown the steak for 20 minutes.
- Add the water and the onion slices to the frying pan.
- Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat to medium. Simmer for about 7 minutes.
- Add the slices of yellow, red, and orange bell peppers to the frying pan.
- Simmer for 20 more minutes. If the water level is low in the frying pan, add more.
- While that is simmering, prepare the white rice using the directions on the package.
- Mix the corn starch together with the soy sauce.
- The water level should slightly cover the steak and vegetables. Add water now if needed. Slowly stir in the corn starch soy sauce mixture. Continue to simmer until the water thickens into a sauce.
- Then, place the tomatoes on top for the last 5 minutes of simmering until heated through.
*️⃣ Recipe Notes
- The longer you simmer the steak in the water before adding any vegetables, the tenderer it will be.
- Mac and cheese is our favorite side dish with pepper steak.
- Want some dessert after dinner, try this yummy peach cobbler.
💖 More Steak Recipes You Will Love
- Easy Philly Cheesesteak Sandwich Recipe – Thinly sliced steak smothered in seasonings, provolone cheese, onions, and red bell peppers, then spread on toasted buttered hoagie rolls. One of our favorites!
- Recipe for Eye of Round Steak – Browned steak seasoned with Johnny’s seasoning salt, table salt, and ground black pepper, then simmered until super tender.
- Steak Kabobs Marinade for Grilling – Start the BBQ, then load up your skewers with seasoned chunks of sirloin steak, red bell peppers, yellow bell pepper, and red onion.
A wife, a mother to a son and a daughter, and a grandmother to three granddaughters. Flo loves sharing recipes passed down from her own mother, her mother-in-law, and her grandmother as well as new recipes created with her daughter, Tamara Ray.
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