This Slow Cooker Pepper Steak is a super easy slow cooker meal that’s packed full of flavor. All that’s required is 10 minutes prep time to you end up with one delicious meal. Always a favorite and better than take out!
This pepper steak recipe is as simple as it gets. It utilizes tons of fresh flavors, like onion, garlic, and bell pepper, and is all cooked down in a zippy pepper sauce. Cooked low and slow, this steak recipe produces a dish that is fork tender and completely drool worthy.
I love to serve this over fluffy white rice, with all that liquid in the pot spooned over generously. The best part? It only requires 10 minutes of prep time! Let’s get cookin!
What Is Pepper Steak?
Pepper steak is a Chinese American dish that is a take out classic. It uses strips (or in this case cubes) of beef that is cooked down with bell pepper and a sauce thickened using cornstarch. Now I didn’t dice up a filet mignon or anything of the sort, rather I picked up some well marbled beef tenderloin and cubed it up into bite sized pieces.
Ingredient Notes
- Beef – Tenderloin cubed up into bite sizes pieces, about 1 1/2 inches. We want a cut that will hold up well to a longer cook time.
- Onion – Something that holds up well to long cooking, such as white or yellow.
- Garlic – Use as much or little as you like.
- Bell pepper – Any color you like, diced up into bite sized chunks.
- Broth – I used beef today, because – well we’re cooking with beef! Low sodium please as we want to control our salt content.
- Teriyaki – A little teriyaki sauce will go a long way flavor wise. If you don’t have any on hand it’s easy to make! It just requires soy sauce, honey, cornstarch and water.
- Hot sauce – Whichever kind strikes your fancy, today I used sriracha.
- Seasoning – I just used pepper today, we have more than enough salt in here already.
- Cornstarch – This ingredient will thicken up our sauce.
How To Make Slow Cooker Pepper Steak
- Prepare your dish: Trim the meat if needed and cut into small pieces. Place the meat in the slow cooker. Then throw in the rest of the ingredients and roughly stir. Cover and cook on LOW for 5 to 6 hours or on HIGH for 3.5 hours.
- Create the pepper sauce: To thicken the sauce, take a ladle of the sauce from the slow cooker and whisk it together with the cornstarch in a small sauce pan. Cook on low until the sauce thickens, then throw it back in the slow cooker and stir so that it all combines well.
- Finish the Pepper Steak: Garnish with chopped green onion, sesame seeds, or fresh parsley and serve hot.
What Else Can Be Used In Slow Cooker Pepper Steak?
Meat
I used beef tenderloin for this dish today but beef top round or sirloin cuts will also do just fine. Chicken can also be used instead of beef altogether, the cook time remains roughly the same so follow all the other directions just the same for a delicious chicken twist.
Veggies
While they aren’t traditional you can also use carrots, zucchini, tomato, or mushrooms. You can also serve this dish over cauliflower rice to add another serving of veggies to your dinner.
Tips For Making The Best Pepper Steak
- You can skip the sauce thickening step if you’re in a hurry, it is by no means crucial! But I love it as I find whichever starchy base I spoon this dish over soaks up the sauce even better when it’s thicker.
- We don’t need to marinade the meat today as it’ll absorb lots of flavor as it cooks slowly but if marinating is key in your kitchen, by all means feel free to combine the sauce ingredients and allow the meat to soak in the fridge as long as you’d like. If time permits, you can also go ahead and brown the meat first.
- Slice your tenderloin against the grain to be sure each bite is incredibly tender to the tooth.
How To Serve
This dish is just beautiful served over fluffy white rice, mashed potatoes, or egg noodles. If you have different varieties of rice on hand and want to spoon this dish over something a little different, this handy guide should help.
Storing Leftovers
This dish will stay fresh in an airtight container in the fridge for 3 – 4 days. In the freezer it’ll keep for 2 – 3 months, just be sure it is completely cool before packing in a shallow airtight container.
Craving More Steak? Try These Delicious Recipes:
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Slow Cooker Pepper Steak
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 pound beef tenderloin cut in 1 inch pieces
- 1 medium onion roughly chopped
- 4 cloves garlic minced
- 2 bell peppers any color, roughly chopped
- 1 3/4 cups beef broth low sodium
- 1/4 cup teriyaki sauce
- 1 teaspoon hot sauce I used Sriracha sauce
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper or to taste
- 1 tablespoon cornstarch
Instructions
- Trim the meat if needed and cut into small pieces. Place the meat in the slow cooker. Then throw in the rest of the ingredients and roughly stir.
- Cover and cook on low for 5 to 6 hours or on high for 3.5 hours.
- To thicken the sauce, take a ladle of the sauce and whisk it together with the cornstarch in a small sauce pan. Cook on low until the sauce thickens, then throw it back in the slow cooker and stir so that it all combines well.
- Serve over rice, noodles or mashed potatoes. Garnish with some chopped onions or parsley and some sesame seeds.
Recipe Notes
- Although I used a tenderloin, you could use beef top round steak or beef sirloin steak. Stewing beef would also work.
- No salt is listed as an ingredient in this recipe because I find that the teriyaki sauce and beef broth together provide enough saltiness but if you want, feel free to add more as needed.
- This dish will stay fresh in an airtight container in the fridge for 3 – 4 days. In the freezer it’ll keep for 2 – 3 months, just be sure it is completely cool before packing in a shallow airtight container.
Hi! Question about thickening the sauce. Your note says take “a” ladle of sauce from the pan. Do I do all the sauce or just one ladle? Thanks so much!
Just a ladle, you just need some liquid to mix in with the cornstarch. Alternatively you can mix the cornstarch with a bit of water. 🙂
You didn’t list the ingredient portions to make the teriyaki sauce Jo, could you please let us know
I’m not sure what you’re asking. The recipe with the amounts and all ingredients are listed in the recipe card itself. You need 1/4 cup of teriyaki sauce. If you want to make your own teriyaki sauce here’s my recipe: https://cravinghomecooked.com/homemade-teriyaki-sauce/
Loved it! Quick and easy to make.
I love your recipes, this one included, but on this one (“Virginia Says” and) I have to ask, why use the most expensive AND LEAST FLAVORFUL cut of beef in something that will be slow-cooked, rendering ANY cut that is used quite tender?
As every beef lover knows, the beef scale runs from tender to flavorful; the more tender the cut, the less flavorful, and vice versa. The only real advantage of beef tenderloin in any application is that it is the extreme on the tender end of the scale. So for something that’s going to cook this long, wouldn’t something like sirloin, round, or even chuck or brisket be just as tender, but provide a lot more beef flavor at significantly lower cost?
I understand not wanting to get a bunch of gristle in the meaty bits of the soup, but with most cuts, especially sirloin and eye of round, it’s very easy to spot and remove gristle (usually just one big, obvious streak that’s easy to fillet off using the same method as removing skin from fish with a fillet or boning knife) before cutting the beef into cubes. (And if you put the gristley bits in a cheesecloth bag and add them to the slow-cooker to be easily extracted before serving, they also add a lot of delicious gelatin to the broth that forms.) So if the end result is going to be tender regardless of the cut, for my own tastes and purposes it makes the most sense to spend less and get more flavor in the dish. Your thoughts, please?
Hi David! I really have no valid reason for this only that’s what I had in the fridge. As mentioned in the notes though, you could use a less expensive cut of beef as stewing beef.
Can I use the teriyaki marinade?
Can I add mushrooms? And how much?
Hi – am I able to use the same recipe if I’m making it stove top?
Sure, just adjust your cooking time and heat accordingly.
Wondering why you chose a normally tender cut of meat for this recipe. I would think, economically, speaking, a less expensive but equally flavorful cut would be a more wise choice
My Daddy cooked with pork , shrimp and taro.. its so yummy, i will try this recipe, thank you for sharing!