Southern Style Chicken Fried Steak Recipe

I love this Southern Style Chicken Fried Steak recipe! Even with goat kidding season, we still have to eat. And chicken fried steak with creamy country grave is one of my favorites. But have you ever tried to make chicken fried steak at home, just to have the crust fall off while frying? Keep reading for the secret to the perfect southern style chicken fried steak recipe! (Note, you will need to start preparing this a few hours ahead of time, even though it’s very simple.)

This chicken fried steak recipe serves 4. The amounts can easily be adjusted up or down – if you want to make less, it’s probably best to just decrease the meat portion and keep the rest the same. If you want to make more, it can be doubled, etc.

Ingredients for chicken fried steak:

2 cups all purpose flour
1 T. salt
¼ t. freshly ground black pepper
warm water
4 4-oz cube steaks
Oil for frying

The steps are very simple. Sift together the flour, salt, and pepper and place them in a large flat dish. Fill another large pan with warm water (for dipping the steaks). Some people like to use milk or buttermilk, but for steaks I just use water. Prepare a large cookie sheet or similar by covering it with waxed paper (this step is important).

If your steaks are not already very thin (say around 1/4″) – and they probably are not – place them on a cutting board and pound them a bit flatter with a mallet. If you don’t have a mallet, you can just press them flat with your hands and it will work almost as well. Next, dip the steaks in the water, and dredge them through the flour to coat them well. I usually repeat this step and double-dip them. After each steak is breaded, lay it flat on the waxed paper. Now, here comes the trick!

Place the steaks in the freezer and allow them to freeze solid with the coating mix on them. This is what keeps the coating intact and prevents it from falling off while the steaks are being cooked. This step is VERY IMPORTANT! (By the way, if I have extra steaks and I don’t want to cook them all, I go ahead and bread them all and freeze them. Whatever I don’t want to cook right away, I layer with waxed paper and wrap in freezer paper to cook later, making for a quicker meal next time.)

Keep the steaks in the freezer until the gravy is almost ready.

Ingredients for gravy

2 T ground beef or sausage (if it’s a fatty sausage, you will probably need a bit more)
¼ cups all-purpose flour
2 cups chicken broth or stock
2 cups whole milk
¼ t coarsely ground black pepper
¼ t salt

Brown the meat in s small skillet, crumbling it very fine as you cook it. You want a little fat from the meat. If it’s lean ground beef, it should be fine. If it’s sausage, you may want to remove some of the fat once it cooks out. Add the flour and stir it in for a few minutes, allowing it to cook over a low heat. You do NOT want to brown the flour! Just cook it very briefly. Transfer to a saucepan and add the other ingredients, and stir it all together very well. Keep stirring, and bring the gravy to a boil. Allow it to boil for about a minute, then reduce the heat to low. It will need to cook for 10-15 minutes in order to thicken up. If your steaks aren’t done by the time it gets thick, just cover and keep on very low heat and stir every once in awhile.

While the gravy is thickening is a good time to start heating the oil for your steaks. You want enough oil in the pan to cover them. Because each one is so large, I usually cook them one at a time to conserve oil, but it’s up to you. (If you’re going to cook them all at once, make sure your gravy is starting to thicken a little. You want the steaks done LAST so they don’t have to sit in a warm oven awaiting the gravy.)

The cooking of the steaks is VERY simple. Just let the oil reach a medium-high heat (you want it to crackle when you dust in a bit of flour), then peel your now-frozen, breaded steaks from the wax paper and slide them in carefully. If your oil is deep enough, you won’t even have to turn them over, though I usually do. Just leave them in there to cook , turning if you want to, for about 9-10 minutes. When they turn golden-brown, they are ready. Just pull them out and drain the oil, then spoon on gravy and you’re ready to enjoy!

This Chicken fried steak recipe goes great with mashed potatoes. Here’s my simple mashed potatoes recipe!