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Grilling is a fantastic way to get outside and enjoy the summer weather. This grilled steak salad with balsamic vinaigrette, packed with mushrooms, red onions, and blue cheese, is one of my favorites. It’s hearty enough to be a complete meal, making it a fast weeknight dinner option.
❤️ Why You’ll Love This Steak Salad Recipe
- Delicious: The tender steak pairs beautifully with the tangy blue cheese, and the homemade balsamic vinaigrette ties it all together, creating a mouthwatering meal.
- Versatile: Easily swap out ingredients to suit your tastes and dietary needs.
- Nutrient-Packed: This healthy steak salad recipe is rich in protein from the steak and cheese and loaded with vitamins and minerals from the veggies.
🥗 Steak Salad Ingredients
- Mixed Greens: I like using a mix of arugula and spinach.
- Steak: This easy steak salad recipe is fantastic with leftover steak, or you can grill steak. I typically buy filets or flank steak.
- Red Onion: Thinly sliced red onion adds a little crunch, complementing the earthy mushrooms and rich blue cheese.
- Mushrooms: I use white button mushrooms, but baby bellas would work too.
- Blue Cheese: This classic steak salad wouldn’t be complete without creamy blue cheese.
- Steak Salad Dressing: The best dressing for steak salad is a simple balsamic vinaigrette made with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, Dijon mustard, honey, garlic, salt, and pepper.
👩🍳 How to Make Steak Salad
- Grill your steaks on high heat until they reach your desired temperature. Let them rest for five to 10 minutes before slicing.
- Make the balsamic vinaigrette by whisking all the dressing ingredients until blended.
- Assemble your steak salad: Put the mixed greens in a bowl, top with steak, mushrooms, onions, and blue cheese, and toss with balsamic dressing.
🪄 Tips and Tricks
- Feed More People: This grilled steak salad recipe serves one, but you can easily multiply the recipe by how many people you need to feed. The vinaigrette will make enough for about six salads, so there’s no need to double that recipe.
- No Grill? Cook your steak in a cast iron skillet on the stove.
🗒 Variations
- More Veggies: This simple steak salad would be great with cherry tomatoes, avocado, or cucumber.
- Grill the onions and mushrooms when you grill the steak.
- Add Croutons: I love these homemade croutons made from pizza dough.
🗒 Substitutions
- Protein: If you don’t eat red meat, replace it with chicken, shrimp, or salmon.
- Leafy Greens: Use romaine or butter lettuce.
- Not a mushroom fan? Leave them out and add another vegetable.
- Onions: Substitute shallots or green onions.
- Don’t like blue cheese? Swap it with mozzarella, feta, or goat cheese.
- Dairy-Free: Omit the cheese.
- Dressing Alternatives: Try my gut-healing salad dressing, red wine vinaigrette, or lemon vinaigrette.
🍽️ Best served with
This meal is filling on its own, but here are some ideas for what to serve with steak salad:
- Your favorite bread from a local bakery
- A warm cup of soup, like French onion or tomato soup
- Oven roasted potatoes
👝 How to Store Steak Salad
Once you toss the salad with dressing, it’s best to eat it immediately; storing it will make the lettuce soggy.
Refrigerate the salad ingredients in separate containers to ensure they stay fresh. Grilled steak will last four days in the fridge.
For leftovers, assemble your salad right before eating. You can microwave the meat until it’s warm or eat it cold.
🤔 Common Questions
Season your steak for at least an hour or up to 24 hours before cooking it to infuse it with flavor and tenderize it. Salt is essential for making meat tender, but you can enhance the flavor by adding other seasonings, like garlic powder, onion powder, and paprika.
Marinades are another way to impart flavor. Two of my favorites are this kiwi marinade and Dijon lemon marinade.
Cooking times depend on the size of the steak. Since giving an exact amount of time is hard, I always recommend checking it with a reliable meat thermometer. For medium-rare steak, remove it from the grill when the internal temperature is 135°F, or for medium, take it off at 145°F.
Let the meat rest before slicing, which will help the juices redistribute, ensuring they won’t run out when you slice the meat.
Figuring out how full your propane tank is can be tricky, but I have a tip that takes the guesswork out of checking it. This video shows how pouring boiling water on the side of the tank helps you determine how much propane is left.
Watch my video for more on how to clean and grease your grill. I also have a couple of tips for the best way to use skewers when grilling.
Steak Salad
Equipment
- Meat thermometer
- Grill
Ingredients
Salad
- 2 cups mixed greens, like arugula and spinach
- ½ lb filets or flank steak, grilled and thinly sliced
- ½ cup sliced mushrooms
- ¼ cup red onion, thinly sliced
- ¼ cup crumbled blue cheese
Balsamic Vinaigrette
- ¼ cup balsamic vinegar
- ½ cup olive oil
- 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
- 1 tablespoon honey
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Grilled Steak
- Season the steak with salt and pepper up to 24 hours before for the best flavor.
- Preheat the grill to high.
- Grill diagonally: For those beautiful grill marks, place the steak on the grill at a slight diagonal angle. Grill for 2 minutes, then rotate it diagonally in the opposite direction and grill for another 2 minutes. Then flip the steaks over and repeat.
- Use a meat thermometer: The total cook time will vary depending on the thickness of your steak. To ensure it is perfectly cooked, check its internal temperature with a meat thermometer. Aim for 135°F for medium-rare and 145°F for medium.
- Rest the steak: After grilling, cover the steak with foil and let it rest for 5–10 minutes. This helps the juices redistribute, making the steak more tender and juicy.
Salad
- To make the balsamic vinaigrette, combine the balsamic, Dijon, honey, and garlic in a small bowl or jar. Slowly whisk in the olive oil and season with salt and pepper to taste.
- Place mixed greens in a salad bowl.
- Top with sliced steak, mushrooms, blue cheese, and red onions.
- Drizzle with balsamic vinaigrette and serve.
