Elizabeth Poett’s Weeknight Steaks with Sweet Onions

If you think of steak as a special occasion food—something you only eat on birthdays or at celebrations—you’ve probably never had dinner at my dear friend Elizabeth Poett’s house. A seventh-generation cattle rancher, Elizabeth knows how special a good cut of well-raised, properly-cooked beef can be. (She and her family have dedicated their lives to producing high-quality meat from free-range, grass-fed animals.)

But she also knows that a simple steak, seared on a grill or in a pan, can make the perfect quick weeknight dinner when you’re short on time and need something hearty, flavorful, and full of protein to put on the table.

This recipe for Weeknight Steaks with Sweet Onions—from Elizabeth’s first cookbook, The Ranch Table (which I had the honor of co-writing with her)—reminds me of countless dinners I’ve had in her cozy kitchen over the years. It’s the kind of meal she whips up when we get to her house late in the evening after a long day of work or play. 

With very little time to cook (and, usually, a crew of hungry kids and guests to feed), Elizabeth will pull a couple steaks out of the freezer and thaw them under cool water while she gets a few odds and ends out of the refrigerator or sends her kids to her garden to collect vegetables. 

Within minutes, she has put her guests to work making a salad or blanching green beans, and she’s standing at the stove, carefully cooking the meat until it has a rich brown crust and a perfectly pinkish-red interior. In just 15 minutes, we’re all digging in. Dinner has never felt easier or more satisfying. 

Cooking Steak with Butter

The method Elizabeth uses in this recipe—spooning melted butter over the steaks to baste them while they cook—is a classic technique that adds wonderful flavor to any steak. It’s also particularly great when you’re cooking with grass-fed meat, as Elizabeth does, because it adds additional fat (and free-ranging animals have more muscle and less fat than those fed in more industrialized settings). 

It does, however, require you to give your steak a little extra time and attention: To cook the steak, you’ll need to lift one edge of the pan off the stove with one hand, so the butter can pool on one side, then use your other hand to scoop the butter up with a spoon and pour it over the steak. You’ll want to repeat this process a lot during the cooking, to give the meat an even sear, but the results are worth the couple of minutes it takes.