Intro: Welcome to Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table any night of the week. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich.

Ooh, wee, I love me some egg salad sandwiches. That’s what we are talking about today. We love to eat egg salad in the spring and the summer when it’s a little bit warmer. It just makes a great cold sandwich dinner.

Tips and Tricks: If you listen to the last episode, then you heard my very favorite way to make hard-boiled eggs using my Instant Pot and the 5 5, 5 method. If you didn’t listen, you can go back and check it out, or I’ll just tell you here. If you’re a seasoned instant pot user, 555 means five-minute pressure cook, five-minute natural release, and a five-minute ice bath, and your hard-boiled eggs are perfect. I’m telling you. They practically peel themselves. It’s wild. 

I don’t really have any other mega tips for egg salad sandwiches other than when you choose a bun for your egg salad, make sure that it’s not something that’s too hearty. You don’t want a potato bun or some big country loaf. More of a delicate bun goes really well with egg salad. Something like a brioche bun or croissants. 

Egg Salad Sandwiches Recipe: Let’s get to making our egg salad. This is going to go fast. Are you ready? You’re going to take six hard-boiled eggs and chop them up and dice them so that they have little bite-size pieces. Add that to a bowl. Add a third of a cup of mayonnaise, one tablespoon of mustard, a third cup of diced celery. A quarter cup of finely sliced green onions. 

Okay, I guess I do have another kitchen tip for you. When you use green onions, I like to chop off the little stem end that has the little roots growing out of it, discard that, and then start chopping from the white side into the light green, and that’s what I add to my egg salad.

The really dark green ends are more for garnish, not really for that nice green onion flavor. Okay, so add your quarter cup of finely sliced green onions, half a teaspoon of sugar, and a quarter teaspoon of kosher salt. Now just stir that all together. Let it sit for about 10 minutes and then scoop it onto your buns, your croissants, or whatever you choose to use it for. You can also eat this on top of a lightly dressed green salad with just a really light vinaigrette.

To serve your egg salad sandwiches. If it’s steamy and hot outside, then you are going to want to just serve it with chips and maybe some raw veggies with ranch dip or blue cheese or something. If it is spring and it’s still a little bit cool outside, we love to serve our egg salad sandwiches with sweet potato fries. 

That does it for today’s episode. As always, I will link the full printable recipe for you in the show notes, I will also include the link to the recipe for the 5 5 5 instant hot, hard-boiled eggs.

If you are enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love to have you subscribe or follow on your preferred podcast player. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, make your dinner time a little bit easier.

Intro: Welcome to Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table any night of the week. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: For years and years, I struggled to make the perfect hard-boiled egg. I mean, I even put a recipe on my website momsdinner.net for egg salad. In the post I said, I have to admit, I am not quite sure how to make a perfect hard-boiled egg because they either come out underdone, or overdone, or when you go to peel the actual egg, half of the egg goes with the shell. That was my plight until I found the Instant Pot 555 hard-boiled egg method. It is foolproof. It works every single time. I have not had a time when it didn’t work. My husband can even make these, which is saying a lot because he doesn’t spend a lot of time in the kitchen. We’ll just say that.

Tips and Tricks: Obviously you’re going to need an instant pot to make your hard-boiled eggs. I use the six Quart Nine and one Duo Plus. An Instant Pot is actually just a brand. Any electric pressure cooker will work here. 

You may be thinking, what in the world is 5, 5, 5? That is your basic method for making these hard-boiled eggs. It is a five-minute pressure cook, a five-minute natural release, and then a five-minute ice bath, and they’re perfect. If you’re a seasoned Instant Pot user, then that’s it. That’s all you need to know. 555. 

If you are not seasoned at using your Instant Pot, keep listening because I’m going to go over all the details of how to use the 555. 

Instant Pot Hard Boiled Eggs Recipe: Okay. So you’re going to start by taking about one and a half cups of water and pouring it right into your Instant Pot. Then your pot probably came with a metal trivet that you can set down into the pot. I recommend using this because it will hold your eggs in place and not allow them to kind of bump around when they’re being pressure cooked and possibly crack. So go ahead and place that trivet down in your pot and then layer your eggs in. You’ll notice inside the pot there’s probably a line that says Max fill. You can put as many eggs as you want in there. Just don’t go past that max fill line. Take your lid and fit it on top. Turn it so it locks into place. Then that little pressure valve that’s on top, make sure you turn that to seal. 

Now we’re going to set the five-minute cook time. You want to just hit manual or pressure cook whatever your instant pot says for high pressure, normal heat, five minutes. Once you get that set, your pot will beep saying that it has basically accepted your time and your settings, and it will start to build pressure.

Now while that is building pressure and cooking, I recommend going ahead and making your ice bath, and then you can just set that aside. I like to take one of my big mixing bowls, fill it with ice, or just halfway with ice and water. Set it aside. 

Now you may be wondering what in the world is a natural pressure release. You don’t have to do anything for your pot to move into natural pressure release. You set it to cook for five minutes. At the end of that five minutes, it automatically goes into natural pressure release and it will start to count back up in time. We want to do that for five minutes. So once it reaches five, then you’re going to turn that valve that’s on the top of your pot, to vent. The rest of the pressure is going to escape. There’s probably a little metal pin near that valve. Once that drops down, then you can open up your pot. 

The nice thing about using that trivet is you can take a towel or something and grab the little handles of it and pull all of your eggs out at once. Now, that’s if you use like six or 12 eggs. If you have three dozen in there, don’t try that. 

Pop your eggs right into the ice bath and leave them there for five minutes, and then your eggs are good to go. You can use them right away, or you can pop them right in the fridge. 

We like to use our hard-boiled eggs for either deviled eggs, which I have a killer recipe for deviled eggs that I will link in the show notes for you, or we like egg salad sandwiches. I will go over how to make egg salad sandwiches right in the next episode. I will also link the full printable recipe for your 555 Instant Pot hard-boiled eggs and the egg salad sandwiches right in the show notes for you. 

That’s it for today. If you’re enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love it if you would subscribe or follow in your preferred podcast player. That will just make it easier for you to find all the future episodes right in your podcast feed. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier.

Intro: Welcome to Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table any night of the week. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: Hello. Hello. Welcome back to Mom’s Dinner. Nope. This is not Mom’s Dinner. Mom’s Dinner is actually my food blog. This is Let’s Make Dinner, my podcast. Hello. Welcome. Welcome in everybody. 

Today I have an awesome pasta recipe for you that you can get on the table in about 15 minutes. It comes together so incredibly quickly, but it has nice layers of flavor so the adults will love it. But if you tell the kids they’re just eating Alfredo, they’re going to love it too.

Tips and Tricks: We’re talking about Mascarpone Pasta. If you have not used mascarpone cheese, sometimes I feel like cheese is a little bit of a misnomer here because it isn’t like a block of cheese. It’s more like a cross between butter and cream cheese. It has the texture of cream cheese, but it definitely tastes like really creamy butter. You should be able to find mascarpone cheese in just about any grocery store, probably near the dairy in the refrigerated section. 

Some other ingredients that you want to make sure that you have on hand to make this is obviously pasta, garlic, lemon, Parmesan cheese, and then you need white wine. If you don’t drink wine and you normally don’t have wine in your house and you maybe prefer not to use it, you could definitely sub in chicken broth. It just won’t have that extra layer of flavor. 

Now, if you want to use wine, but you’re not a huge white wine drinker, like me, I love my red wine. I don’t drink a ton of white wine. But what I like to do is buy the, let’s see, I’m going to try and explain this to you. It’s a carton of white wine, not the big box of white wine. It’s more of just like a two-serving little carton. You can buy that, pour out what you want to use for this recipe, then flip the top up so you create a little bit more space in that carton, and you can freeze white wine for up to six months. Now, obviously, you don’t want to drink that white wine after you freeze it. But it’s perfect to use in any recipes that call for white wine. So, great kitchen tip. Use it, abuse it. We’re not abusing. Use it and love it. 

Mascarpone Pasta Recipe: Let’s get on to making this recipe. You’re going to want to make the pasta, so boil the pasta while you’re making the sauce, and that way your dinner will be done in 15 minutes. So you’re going to take a large skillet and place it over medium heat. Add a quarter cup of white wine, two minced garlic cloves, and the zest of a whole lemon. Let that simmer together for about two to three minutes. Then stir in four ounces of mascarpone cheese and keep stirring it so that it melts down into the wine and the lemon juice. You should see me in here. I’m literally stirring while I’m talking. I gotta do the action so I know where I’m at. Okay. After that melts down into the wine, you’re going to remove the pan from the heat and sprinkle in half a cup of grated Parmesan cheese. Keep stirring so that melts down into the sauce, and then stir in a quarter teaspoon of kosher salt and a quarter teaspoon of black pepper. If you don’t like black pepper, go ahead and skip that. 

Now, here’s one thing that you’re going to want to remember to do, and this is a great kitchen tip. Anytime you have a recipe that calls for reserved starchy pasta cooking water, how many times have you drained the pasta and then been like, oh hell, I forgot to save the pasta water? I’ve definitely done it. Until I found this tip. When you get your colandar out and you pop it in the sink, also get out a glass measuring cup or just one of your measuring cups and put it in the colandar. That way when you go to actually pour the pasta into the colander one, you’re going to stop and be like, oh yeah, I need to reserve some water. Let me do that. Or two, you’re going to pour it in there. It’s going to capture some of the water, and even if you forgot it, now you have it. 

Take that cooked pasta and toss it right into that mascarpone sauce and just stir it around so it coats all of the pasta. It will be a little thick, and this is where that reserved pasta water comes in. You can pour in a little bit at a time until you get the consistency that you want, and it coats the pasta just how you like. 

That’s it. Your dinner is done. Of course, give it a little taste. See if you want a little bit more salt or pepper, but otherwise, it’s ready to serve. 

I will say one thing about this recipe. It calls for 12 ounces of cooked pasta, which in one house may serve one person. In another house, it may serve four. If you have a house with some really hungry people, you may want to double this recipe. 

This pasta would also be excellent with a little bit of grilled chicken added on top, or if you want to toss in some mushrooms or asparagus, that would be delicious as well.

As far as side dishes go, I recommend serving this just like you would any other pasta dinner. Add a little side salad and maybe some garlic bread. 

That does it for today’s episode of Let’s Make Dinner. As always, I will link the full printable recipes of any recipe that I talked about in this episode.

If you are enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love it if you would subscribe or follow in your preferred podcast player. That way, all of our future episodes will show up right in your podcast feed and be easy to find. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner, makes your dinner time a little easier. 

Intro: Welcome to Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table any night of the week. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich.

Susie Weinrich: It’s Taco Tuesday. Do you know what that means? We are going to be making some tacos for dinner. These are going to be ground beef tacos, and I have a little PSA before we get started. Did you know that you can make tacos without buying that spice packet from the grocery store? If you have a well-stocked spice cabinet, you can totally make tacos. 

This is a great budget-friendly dinner, one pound of ground beef, some taco shells, maybe some toppings, salsa, and your spice cabinet, and you have dinner made in under 30 minutes.

Tips and Tricks: Before we get to making this recipe, let me go over a couple of tips that I have for you when you’re making homemade ground beef tacos. First of all, is your ground beef. I recommend that you use 85/15 ground beef. If you have 80/20, it will totally work. I just find sometimes 80/20 in tacos can get a little bit greasy. The 85/15, or even 90/10 still has enough fat to be flavorful, but not so much fat that you’re going to have greasy taco meat. I recommend 80/20 for hamburgers, but that’s because some of the grease is going to drain out of your hamburger into the grill. Whereas with taco meat and stuff, you’re actually sauteing it in a pan and it’s cooking in its own fat. Which is actually flavor and delicious, but too much is not good. So 85/15 is my recommendation here. 

Number two, this is a piece of equipment that I love and I use way more than I thought I would. I am not one who likes equipment in the kitchen just to have equipment. I like things that I use often. I’m not even sure of the technical name of this piece of equipment. I call it a meat masher, and it basically looks like a four-pronged spatula. It has a cross, and you literally can mash the meat up and crumble the meat really well. It works great for sausage which can sometimes be hard to crumble. 

Ground Beef Tacos Recipe: Let’s get onto this recipe. So you’re going to want to take a large skillet over medium heat and add some oil to that pan about a tablespoon of olive oil or vegetable oil will work as well. Now once that’s hot, you’re going to add one pound of ground beef and get to crumbling that while it browns and cooks through. While that cooks, I recommend mixing up your seasoning in a little bowl. What you’re going to need for that is one teaspoon each of chili powder and cumin, half a teaspoon each of onion powder, garlic powder, and dried oregano. A quarter teaspoon of smoked paprika, and then three-quarters teaspoon of kosher salt, and a quarter teaspoon of black pepper. If you like a little spice, you could certainly add some red pepper flakes in there or some cayenne pepper. 

Now mix that together with a fork and set that aside for just a minute. Go back to the ground beef and drain off any excess grease that has been collected in the pan. Then you’re going to stir in one and a half tablespoons of tomato paste. Get that coated on all of the ground beef, and then you’re going to sprinkle in your seasoning. Again, stir around the pan, and get everything nice and coated. Pour in a third a cup of water, and then just let that simmer for about two minutes and it will get nice, syrupy isn’t the right word, it gets nice and kind of thick and coats the ground beef and makes it look like taco meat. Now you’re going to remove that from the heat and it’s time to make your tacos.

So however you like your tacos, hard shell, soft shell, lettuce, cheese, sour cream. Salsa, guacamole. I’ve got a great salsa and guacamole recipe that I will link in the show notes for you. But however you like it, set it all out and let everybody make their own tacos. 

Now, as far as side dishes, if it’s a busy night, put out some chips, salsa, and guacamole and call it good. If you want it more of a full Mexican-style dinner, I’ve got a great recipe for 15-minute refried beans, which let me tell you, the secret to really good refried beans is using a can of whole pinto beans and a can of refried beans. Mix it together. So good. Then I also have a great recipe for Mexican rice that I will also link in the show notes for you.

That does it for Ground Beef Tacos pretty easily, right? Of course, I will link the full principle recipe for the Ground Beef Tacos in the show notes for you so you can easily find it when you’re ready to make them. 

That does it for today. If you are enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love it if you would subscribe or follow in your preferred podcast player. That way, all of our new episodes will show up right in your podcast feed. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier.

Intro: Welcome to Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table any night of the week. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Hello. Hello. Let’s make some dinner. It’s about dinnertime and I am getting ready to put together dinner. I thought I would come on here and talk about what we are making tonight.

We are having Parmesan Tilapia. If you need a quick and easy dinner idea that doesn’t taste or feel quick and easy, this is it. It’s ready in 15 minutes from start to finish. I have some great side dish ideas that I’ll give you at the end that will also be ready in 15 minutes. 

Some of the ingredients that you’re going to want to make sure that you have on hand for this recipe are tilapia filets, fresh Parmesan cheese, mayonnaise, sour cream, softened butter, a lemon, capers, just some normal spices from your spice cabinet. There is one spice that you may not have, and that is dried dill weed. You’ll definitely want to grab that because the dill is perfect in that Parmesan sauce. If you like a little hot sauce, you can also make sure that you have some Tabasco or Chululo or whatever your favorite hot sauce is.

Tips and Tricks: Some equipment that you need to make sure you have to make this recipe is a rimmed baking sheet, foil, and then some kind of non-stick cooking spray. All right, let’s go over some tips for this recipe. Now, if you’re buying tilapia filets, you’ll want to buy something that is about six to eight ounces in size for each filet. When I buy my tilapia filets frozen, if I can remember, I will put them in the fridge the day before and let them thaw in there. But if you’re like me, you always forget about it. We need quick thaw methods over here at this house. For a quick thaw, what you want to do is fill up either a bowl or your sink with just room temperature water, keep that tilapia in its original packaging, and place it right down in that water. Leave it for about 10 to 15 minutes, then switch the water out again and let it sit in there for another 10 to 15 minutes, and it should be nice and thawed for you to use in this recipe. 

Another tip I have for you is the lemon. When you have a recipe that calls for the zest and the juice of a lemon, you always want to make sure that you zest first. Then cut it in half and squeeze the juice. 

Parmesan Tilapia Recipe: All right, let’s get started with this recipe. It actually comes together very quickly. So you want to do a few prep things before you actually start cooking your tilapia. The first thing is to preheat your oven broiler to 500 or 550 degrees and move that oven rack to one of the top two positions, so it’s anywhere from like six to 10 inches from that broiler heating element.

Next, you want to go ahead and mix up that Parmesan sauce that’s going to go on top of the tilapia. In a small bowl, you’re going to stir together half a cup of grated Parmesan cheese, three tablespoons of each one of these – mayonnaise, sour cream, and butter. Then you want zest of about half of the lemon, one and a half tablespoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice, and one and a half tablespoons of capers. A three-quarter teaspoon of onion powder, half a teaspoon of kosher salt, and half a teaspoon of dried dill weed. Half a teaspoon of hot sauce if you like it spicy. Okay, it’s not going to be super spicy. It just adds a nice little tang or kick to the sauce and then finishes with a quarter teaspoon of black pepper. Give that all a mix and then set that aside. You don’t need that quite yet. 

Now you’re going to want to prepare your rimmed baking sheet by covering it with foil and then spraying it generously with some type of non-stick cooking spray. Then go ahead and lay the tilapia filets on the baking sheet so they are not overlapping or touching. Pop that under the broiler for about three minutes. Then you’re going to pull it out of the oven and flip those filets over. Now you need the Parmesan sauce. You’re going to grab that Parmesan sauce and divide it evenly across all four filets and then spread it to the edges of each piece of fish. Then return it to the broiler for about another four or five minutes and it’s done.

That is it. That is the whole entire recipe. Isn’t it crazy? Your fish will be nice and flaky. The Parmesan sauce gets kind of golden in spots. Now if some of it starts to seep off of the fish when it comes out of the oven, you can just kind of spoon that back over the fish. 

For side dishes, when I am serving Parmesan tilapia, I like to add usually some type of vegetable and some type of starch. For the vegetable, I just love to do an oven-roasted asparagus. You could even pop it in the oven when the tilapia is in there. My oven-roasted asparagus is cooked at 400 degrees for 12 minutes, but since you have that broiler on, you could probably get it cooked in, I don’t know, like eight minutes. 

Then I also like to serve a couscous on the side. If you’ve never made couscous, it’s ready in about eight minutes because you just boil some broth or water. Pop that couscous in there, remove it from the heat and let it sit covered for five minutes. That’s it. It’s done. 

So as you can see, all of these dishes are really done and ready in 15 minutes. You’re going to have an amazing dinner. I will place the links for the full printable recipes for the Parmesan tilapia and the oven roasted asparagus, so they will be easy for you to find right in the show notes. 

If these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner helping you get dinner on the table, I would love it if you would subscribe or follow in your preferred podcast player. It will just make it easier for you to find our future episodes right in your podcast feed. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner, make your dinner time a little easier.

Intro: Welcome to Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table any night of the week. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Susie Weinrich: Calling all potheads. Okay, we’re not talking about marijuana today. We are talking about our lovely instant pots. Do you have an Instant Pot and do you love it? I am obsessed with mine when I first got it though, I will be honest, I felt like I was going to blow up my entire house and everybody in it. So the first couple times I actually made anything in my instant pot, I made everybody leave the kitchen and I would peek around the corner and see how much time I had left and then forget it about the very first time I had to turn that pressure valve and all the pressure flew out like a shotgun. So scared. But really, once you get everything figured out, the Instant Pot is such an amazing kitchen tool. You can cook huge pieces of meat, like pork loin or pork shoulder in such a short amount of time. Or even we love to make beef stew in it because that beef stew meat that is super inexpensive, cooks down incredibly tender in your instant pot.

Tips and Tricks: Today we are not making any of those recipes Today we are making Instant Pot Pulled Barbecue Chicken. If you are a meal prepper, you like to cook a large batch of something on the weekend and have it for your busy week ahead. If you want to cook something in the morning so that it’s ready for dinner at night, this is an excellent recipe because it keeps really well in the fridge.

Or if you want to make it and pop it in the freezer, It keeps really well in the freezer for about three months. But if you are just in time for dinner and you want to make pulled barbecue chicken sandwiches, it’s ready in about 30 minutes from start to finish. 

I bet you already have most of the ingredients you need to make this recipe. Oe thing you’re going to definitely want to make sure you have is one and a half to two pounds of fresh boneless skinless chicken breasts. You could also add in some thighs if you like a little dark meat. On this recipe, I have ingredients to make basically like a barbecue dry rub for your chicken. If you have one already that you like to use, just plan to use that. You don’t need to make your own. It’s not crucial part of the recipe. But if you do want to use my recipe, you’ll wanna make sure that you have brown sugar, kosher salt, black pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder, smoked paprika. Then for the liquid in the pot, we’re going to do either water or chicken broth, Worcestershire sauce, apple cider vinegar, and some crushed garlic cloves.

One tip that I want to give you on the chicken, we are picky about our chicken in this house because I’ve had too many experiences with chicken that had a weird texture, was kind of grizzly or tasted weird, and we were just done with it. What I found is the very best chicken is called air chilled chicken, and that’s not a brand. It is a method. Anytime you can find a chicken that says air chilled right on the front of the package, that’s going to be one of your very best options for flavor and texture. 

Instant Pot BBQ Chicken Recipe: All right, let’s get on with the recipe. You’ll want to take your chicken breasts and if you have extra large chicken breasts, go ahead and cut them into four pieces. If it’s more of a normal or small sized chicken breast, then just cut each piece in half. Then you’re going to want to make your barbecue dry rub. Like I said before, if you already have one that you like, go ahead and use that. But if you do not in a little bowl, you’re going to want to mix together one teaspoon of brown sugar, one and a half teaspoons of kosher salt, one teaspoon of both black pepper and garlic powder, half a teaspoon of onion powder, and a quarter teaspoon of smoked paprika. Give that a really good mix and then sprinkle that on all sides of the chicken. I like to press it onto the chicken a little bit so that it adheres really well. 

Now inside of the Instant Pot, you’ll pour one cup of water, or you can use chicken broth, one tablespoon of Worcestershire sauce, half a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar, and then three or four cloves of crushed fresh garlic. Go ahead and place that seasoned chicken right down in that liquid and then pop the lid of the instant pot on. Turn that pressure valve on the top to seal and set your instant pot to cook on high pressure, normal heat for eight minutes.

At the end of that eight minutes, you’ll do something called a five minute natural release, and that is just where the pot stops heating up. The pressure starts to dissipate and the pot will start to count back up in time. Once it reaches five, you’ll finish releasing the pressure with a quick release by turning that pressure valve on the top of the pot to vent.

Go ahead and remove the chicken pieces from the pot and you’re gonna get to either pulling or shredding. This is an excellent kitchen tip that I use every single time. To shred my warm chicken, I will put it in my stand mixer with the paddle attachment and run it for about 25 seconds. It shreds the chicken perfectly. You may have one or two pieces that you need to shred with a fork, but otherwise it works like a charm. I’m telling you, this is not a kitchen hack that doesn’t work. I promise you it works because I use it every single time. 

Now at this point, if you want to pop your chicken in the freezer, go ahead and put it in a freezer safe bag or container and put it in there for three months. If you’re saving this for dinner for later, you can put it just as is with a little bit of that liquid from the pot in a container, and pop it in the fridge for up to four days. But if you’re just in time for dinner, then you’re going to want to mix your shredded chicken with about a half to three quarters cup of your family’s favorite barbecue sauce.

Then you can pile high on buns with all of your favorite sandwich toppings. For barbecue chicken sandwiches, we love to do either pickles, pickled jalapenos, pepperoncinis, or some type of creamy coleslaw piled high on top of that pulled chicken. 

For side dishes. It really depends on what kind of night it is. So if it’s a busy weeknight, the side dishes may look like chips and raw veggies with ranch dip. If I have a little more time, then we love an instant pot potato salad and baked beans to go with our barbecue sandwiches. 

As always, I will link all of these recipes right in the show notes for you, including the full printable recipe for the instant pop pulled barbecue chicken. 

If you’re enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love it if you would subscribe or follow in your preferred podcast player. That way you can find all of the future episodes right in your podcast feed. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner, makes your dinner time a little easier.

Intro: Welcome to Let’s Make Dinner, your audio library of amazing dinner recipes you can get on the table any night of the week. I’m your host, Susie Weinrich. 

Welcome, welcome everybody to another episode of Let’s Make Dinner. We are getting near the end of the school year and we’re sliding right into summer. So I am looking for all of those easy recipes that I know that my whole family will eat, and the recipe that I’m making tonight is one that I know the whole family will eat. We’re talking about Garlic Butter Steak Bites. They’re super garlicky, and buttery and delicious, and they’re budget conscious. It’ll be like you’re having filet minion on a sirloin budget.

One of the nice things about this recipe is it’s considered a skillet recipe. So you’ve got one pan that you’re going to cook all of these steak bites in. Then if you wanna worry about some side dishes, we can talk about those at the end. It’s also a dinner that you will have ready and on the table in under 30 minutes.

Tips and Tricks: A few ingredients you want to make sure you have are olive oil, kosher salt, black pepper, butter, plenty of fresh garlic. Fresh rosemary, which actually, if rosemary is not your favorite flavor, you could certainly sub out fresh thyme in its place. Then lastly, your worcestershire sauce and a top sirloin steak.

Now, top sirloin is a very lean cut of beef that has a really nice beefy flavor. The only thing is that since it’s more of a lean cut of beef, you do not want to cook this to well done. We’re talking like medium rare to medium at the most. If that’s not your jam, if you’re like, I better not see any pink on the inside of my beef, then you need to skip this recipe and move on to something else.

This top sirloin, when you cook it to a medium rare or medium, it’s going to eat more like a filet than a sirloin. If you have followed me in the past, then you know that I love Aldi. I’m not being paid to talk about Aldi. I just love to go to Aldi. I feel like I can save quite a bit of money there. They actually have really, really nice sirloin steaks. They are nice and large. You can get them like two, two and a half pounds, and they’re not full of gristle. They just have some nice beef fat on them. They are perfect for this recipe. 

Garlic Butter Steak Bites Recipe: Let’s get into making this recipe. You’re going to start by cutting your steak into about one inch, one and a half inch sized pieces. Now if you do have any gristle or large pieces of fat left on your steak, then go ahead and cut that away and discard. Season all of the steak pieces with some kosher salt and black pepper. If you have a cast iron or non-stick skillet, that’s what you’re going to want to use. Place it over medium high heat and add one to two tablespoons of either olive oil or vegetable oil. Both of those have a high enough smoking point to get a nice sear on your steak pieces. 

Another tip for this recipe is that you’re going to want to cook your steak in batches. When you crowd a skillet or a pan or a sheet pan, you actually will start to steam whatever it is that you’re cooking instead of sauteing or browning. 

So with this recipe, you’re probably going to want to cook your steak in three, maybe four batches, but it still goes really quickly. Once that oil is nice and hot in the pan, you’ll lay your first batch of steak bites into the oil and let it cook for about one minute. Then you can flip it, cook it for an additional minute, and then finish for about 30 seconds and you can either stir it around the pan or brown, another side. But about two and a half minutes is all you need to cook these steak bites to about a medium rare. Then you’ll just go ahead and take that batch out of the pan, set it aside on just a plate or whatever you have to the side. Then if you need to add more oil to the pan, go ahead and do that and continue with that process, cooking all of the rest of the steak bites. 

After you have cooked all of the steak bites, go ahead and turn that heat down to about a medium low. You’re going to add the butter with the chopped garlic and rosemary and saute that around the pan for just a couple minutes. Then you’re going to take the steak pieces and any juices that collected on the plate and add it back into the pan, stir it around. Finish with one teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce and stir it again and it’s time to eat. That’s it. 

When I serve these steak bites, I like to keep it pretty classic with a starch and a vegetable. Now you’ve got that skillet that you just cooked all of those steak bites in. What I like to do is add a little bit more oil and some fresh green beans, saute those, add a little garlic at the end and some kosher salt. Serve those on the side. I actually have a recipe on moms dinner.net for skillet garlic green beans that I will link in the show notes for you. 

The next recipe that I recommend is a side dish is next level, people. Next level. It is from my friend Lori over at the food blog, Josie and Nina, and they are crispy oven potatoes. So you’re just taking new potatoes or red potatoes and you’re slicing them in half. You put them on a sheet pan with, it’s almost a whole stick of butter, so it obviously they’re going to be really good. If you’re on any kind of diet, that might not be the recipe for you, but I’m telling you it is worth it for these potatoes. You pop them in the oven. They come out tender and buttery on the inside, but the outside has this crispiness that is just, it’ll blow your mind. It’ll be one of your new favorite side dishes. So I’m going to go ahead and link those in the show notes as well. 

Besides those two recipes, I will also link the full printable recipe for the garlic butter steak bites. The recipe will serve four to five people.

That does it for today. If you are enjoying these episodes of Let’s Make Dinner, I would love it if you would subscribe or follow in your preferred podcast player. That way, all of our future episodes will be easy to find right in your podcast feed. 

Outro: Until next time, I hope this episode of Let’s Make Dinner makes your dinner time a little easier. However, I wish I was being paid by Aldi, so if you got the hookup, send them my way.