Steak-umm Sliced Steaks

My husband and I love a good Philly cheesesteak sandwich. With origins — not surprisingly — in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the cheesesteak sandwich features thin slices of cooked beef and cheese on a hoagie roll. Most variations we’ve had also include grilled onions and bell peppers as toppings.

The details of the cheesesteak’s origin story are unverified, but Pat and Harry Olivieri often get credit for inventing the popular sandwich in the 1930s. They owned a hot dog stand, and one day they decided to make a sandwich with chopped beef and grilled onions. Pat went on to open a restaurant called Pat’s King of Steaks, which still serves up cheesesteak sandwiches to this day.

You can find cheesesteaks on the menus at many restaurants, or you can make them at home using thinly sliced beef — often ribeye — cheese, grilled veggies, and hoagie rolls.

When Aldi recently stocked name-brand Steak-umm beef as a limited-time Aldi Find, I decided to try making some cheesesteak sandwiches with it. I had seen other Aldi shoppers speak highly on social media about this little box of sliced steaks, but I’d never purchased it before because it looked highly processed and unhealthy. After all, it’s chopped, shaped, thinly sliced meat sold in a box in the freezer, and the picture on the box features a big meaty sandwich.

As it turns out, I should have looked at the box more closely because this is actually a pretty good product, and beef is the only ingredient. It has no added sodium, preservatives, or other weird ingredients. So I felt pretty good about frying this up and serving it in hoagie rolls.

Steak-umm Sliced Steaks cost $4.99 for a 15-ounce package at the time of publication. That comes out to about 33 cents per ounce. This is not an Aldi-exclusive brand, and I often see it at other grocery stores. At the time of writing, Walmart sells a larger 31.5-ounce box of Steak-umm for $10.56 or about 34 cents per ounce, so the steak is competitively priced at Aldi.

This is an Aldi Find, so it’s only in stores for a short time. Each store gets one shipment, and after that sells out, it’s gone until whenever Aldi decides to sell it again. Aldi does not offer online ordering for products that are not currently in stock at your local store. I usually see Aldi sell this several times a year, so if you miss out on purchasing it this time around, you probably won’t have to wait more than a couple of months to find it at Aldi again.

Steak-umm was created in 1968 by Gene Gagliardi as an “easily chewable alternative to steak.” Steak-umm’s website states that “the product became iconicized in the 1970’s and 80’s as an easy-to-make latchkey kid staple that parents would buy so they didn’t have to worry about their kids cooking complex meals while they were at work.” Steak-umm is currently owned by Quaker Maid Meats, a family company in Pennsylvania.

In addition to the traditional beef sandwich steaks, they also sell a chicken version and an angus beef version. If you want ideas about what to make with Steak-umm, they also have a robust recipe page featuring everything from breakfast burritos to beef queso dip to Italian beef sandwiches.

As mentioned above, the only ingredient in the original Steak-umm is beef. The package states this is all natural and is minimally processed with no artificial ingredients. The back of the box says:

Steak-umm Sliced Steaks are delicious, easy to prepare and ready in just two minutes. They’re perfect for any meal or snack and are 100% beef, with no artificial anything.

Nutrition information and ingredients. (Click to enlarge.)

One package contains ten 32-gram servings, with each serving netting you 100 calories, 9 grams of total fat (14% DV), 3.5 grams of saturated fat (18% DV), 25 mg of cholesterol (8% DV), 20 mg of sodium (1% DV), and no carbohydrates, dietary fiber, or added sugars. One serving also has 5 grams of protein.

The beef is sold raw, so you’ll need to cook it thoroughly before serving. Because it’s sliced so thinly, it doesn’t take long to cook. The package instructs you to heat a fry pan to 350 degrees (medium-high). Add Steak-umm and cook for approximately 1 minute. Then turn the steaks and cook the other side for 15-20 seconds or until no pink is showing. Steak-umm should be brown on both sides. The package also cautions you to be careful when adding the frozen meat to the hot pan because it can spatter.

What it looks like out of the box.

I cooked this on a double griddle on my stovetop. I couldn’t fit the entire box of steaks on at one time, but it doesn’t take long to cook them and it was easy to cook them all in just a few minutes.

When you open the box, you’ll find a plastic bag filled with raw, pink frozen thinly sliced rectangular steaks separated by paper. You’ll open the bag and carefully peel the steaks apart, being cautious not to break the steaks since they’re thin and frozen and therefore a little fragile.

One odd thing is that “one slice” of meat is actually two very thin slices packaged together. My box contained 10 two-piece slices of beef. I tried to peel them apart but couldn’t do so without breaking them, so I figured they’re intended to stay together. They cook just fine if you leave them together.

They immediately begin to sizzle once you place them on a hot pan, and the cooking time was pretty much as advertised. Keep an eye on them because they can overcook quickly.

After cooking.

This reminds me of unseasoned gyro meat. It has a similar texture and shape to gyro meat, and it cooks much the same way on the stovetop. You have to be careful not to tear the meat while flipping it, but it’s not too difficult to manage.

Philly cheesesteak sandwich.

Once this meat was fully cooked, I layered two and a half slices of beef each on hoagie rolls and topped them with provolone cheese, grilled onions and bell peppers, and some salt and pepper. Some of us also topped our sandwiches with a little mayo or garlic aioli because when you’re making food at home, you can serve it however you want.

We thought these sandwiches were pretty good. Are they restaurant quality? Not quite. But they’re good. Keep in mind that these are not seasoned with anything, so you do have to add your own seasonings and flavor. We found a little salt and pepper were good to add at the table. The nice thing is that you can customize how much salt or other ingredients you want to add.

My husband and I liked our sandwiches enough that I’ll probably buy a box every time I see Steak-umm at Aldi. They’re a nice easy dinner option to keep in the freezer for busy evenings.

The Verdict:

Steak-umm Sliced Steaks are a name-brand product Aldi sells occasionally. This chopped, shaped, thinly sliced beef contains no other ingredients except beef, and it’s great for making steak sandwiches or Philly cheesesteak sandwiches. It’s also good in dishes such as nachos or tacos or as a pizza topping. This is a great product to stash in the freezer for a quick and easy meal without lots of processed ingredients or preservatives.