This Low-Carb Beef Stroganoff recipe has tender beef in a creamy sauce with a touch of mustard. Serve it with zoodles or mashed cauliflower for a delightful dinner that fits into low-carb, Atkins, ketogenic, diabetic, LCHF, and Banting diets.
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This recipe for Low-Carb Beef Stroganoff may not be one of our more creative recipes, but sometimes there is beauty in traditional comfort food. This dish has a seared strips of steak and sautéed mushrooms enveloped in a creamy sauce with hints of onion, garlic, and chives. Tones of mustard and some tang from sour cream give the sauce its traditional flavor.
While Beef Stroganoff may have Russian origins, my first encounter with it was in the beef stroganoff flavored Hamburger Helper. Yep, while my mother almost always cooked from scratch, she occasionally tried packaged foods to simplify her life and get a quick meal on the table.
This recipe doesn’t come out of a box or contain any powder packets or noodles. Instead, the recipe is based on traditional beef stroganoff. I do confess that I used hamburger in the first two variations of this recipes and it turned out well. While hamburger works, when I upgraded to steak, the finished product was so much better! I guess there really isn’t any shock here–I mean fillet vs. ground beef. Hmmm, which tastes better?
Take care with searing the beef. This step will make or break the final product. A good sear adds loads of flavor. To get a good sear, be sure not to crowd the pan. A crowded pan causes the meat to steam instead of sear. In addition, the pan and oil needs to be hot before adding the meat. I like to use ghee for this step as it has a higher smoke point than butter, but still doesn’t oxidize like most vegetable fats do. I have been able to use butter for this step, but I make sure the pan is good and hot before I add it, and add the meat as soon as the butter stops foaming. The butter may brown a bit, but I find that the browned butter just adds favorably to the overall flavor of the dish.
Beef stroganoff is typically served over noodles (especially in the United States), rice, or mashed potatoes. This low-carb version can be served over buttered spiralized zucchini or summer squash, or over riced or mashed cauliflower. This dish would also be fantastic with our Mashed Cauliflower with Smoked Gouda recipe. Whatever you decide to serve it with, this Low-Carb Beef Stroganoff will make a hearty and satisfying winter meal. Enjoy!
-Annissa
Low-Carb Beef Stroganoff
Ingredients
- 3 Tablespoon butter or ghee divided
- 1 pound beef steak sirloin or tenderloin, cut into 1/2 inch strips and dried with a paper towel
- 8 ounces cremini button, shiitake or bella mushrooms, sliced
- 1 medium yellow onion chopped
- 1 clove garlic crushed
- 1 Tablespoon white or red wine vinegar
- 1/4 cup dry red wine
- 1/2 cup beef stock
- 1/2 cup heavy cream
- 1/3 cup sour cream
- 2 teaspoon prepared dijon mustard
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1/2 teaspoon sea salt
- 1 Tablespoon chives thinly sliced
- 1 Tablespoon parsley chopped
Instructions
- Heat a large skillet over high heat. Add 1 Tablespoon butter. When foaming subsides, add the beef, but do not allow edges to touch. If the beef does not fit in your pan without touching edges, perform this step in batches. Avoid the temptation to move the meat. When the first side is brown, flip the meat. When second side has browned and meat has cooked to desired doneness, remove to a plate.
- Turn heat to medium-high and add second tablespoon of butter. When butter stops foaming, add the mushrooms. Cook until mushrooms are tender, stirring occasionally. Remove to the plate with the steak.
- Melt the third Tablespoon of butter in the pan. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally until the edges are brown and onions are soft and tender. Stir in garlic and cook for 1 minute.
- Add vinegar to pan and scrape up brown bits at the bottom of pan. When vinegar has almost completely evaporated add the wine and continue deglazing the pan.
- When wine has almost completely evaporated, add beef stock. Bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally. When beef stock is reduced by about half, add the heavy cream. Simmer liquid until sauce is thick enough to coat a spoon.
- Transfer steak and mushrooms back to the pan and reheat gently. Stir in sour cream, mustard black pepper, and salt. Heat just enough to warm the sour cream. Remove from heat and add the chives and parsley. Taste and adjust seasoning if desired.
Recipe Notes
One serving is 1/4 of the recipe.
Per serving:
Calories: 411
Fat (g): 26
Carbs (g): 4
Fiber (g): 1
Protein (g): 28
Net Carbs (g): 3
This information was calculated using cremini mushrooms and cabernet wine.
Awesome recipe.
For those who are a little time strapped or intimidated, there is a super simple even easier ‘good enough’ version of this that’s even lower carb. Especially if like me you don’t care for shrooms, but like the stroganoffy sauce flavor, despite all the shroomage. The key thing is the sour cream and the red wine.
You can use butter, ghee is great, but coconut oil works just fine, and is a lot easier than butter for frying.
Start with your 1Tbs of oil, and salt and pepper it, if you didnt chop up onions, sprinkle some shakes of onion powder on there. Don’t need a lot, we are talking shakes not tsp. Throw your crushed garlic and onions in there when its hot. The idea is to flavor the oil/fat. If you like what you smell, you are good. Once the onion or garlic start to brown put the beef in as directed no crowding.
Once its seared on both sides, remove the beef and put on the side. If you dont want to consume the garlic and or the onions, you can remove them now, the flavor is there in the oil. Reduce heat and Pour some red wine on the pan, I use just enough to cover the pan, shouldn’t need more than 2-3 tablespoons for a full size pan if you just gotta measure, use it to deglaze the pan swish your spoon over any dark or crusted spots and then wine should dissolve it. Turn the heat back up to where it just bubbles a little, and let it do that for a bit. Toss the meat back in, and stir it up/flip it around in the reducing wine until well coated. Reduce heat to low, Dump the sour cream in (again about 2 tablespoons should be plenty). And stir it around until well mixed and you have a familiar thick, brown looking sauce. (You can add the sour cream before the beef If you have trouble mixing with the beef in there, but the other way around gives a… Tang to the surface of the beef I like).
Dump it into a bowl and eat.
Worcestershire sauce and sour cream is what gives stroganoff the great taste.
LOVE YOUR RECIPES!
Thanks, Kelly!
Absolutely delicious! I made it with ribeye
steak to upthe fat content and served it with
zucchini noodles. I don’t drink so I left out the
red wine and added a splash of woosticher
sauce. Since my boyfriend dosen’t eat meat,
I am looking forward to eating the leftovers
For the next couple of days.
I love leftover stroganoff. Sometimes it’s even better the second time!
Love this recipe! We use it quite often. I double the carrots and celery and add minced onion flakes to it and use Uncle Ben’s Wild Rice. After a couple hours check it to see if it needs a little bit more water added.
all of these sound good, but i really want to try the cherry, cherry dessert. i have never made a dessert in the crockpot before.
i bought this expensive non-stick tefal grill pan BUT i can’t seem to get the perfect grill marks as i used to with my cheaper cast iron pan! the non-stick is so much easier to clean although i might as well be grilling the chicken in a skillet! is there anything i can do to make this one work as good?
Alisha,
When I use a grill pan, I always try to have it super hot before adding the meat. Also, I dry the meat well before adding it to the pan. I do worry a bit about heating non-stick pans to a high temperature due to the potential of releasing certain vapors. You may want to consult with the pan company on how best to achieve the grill marks.
-Annissa
“Your style is very unique compared to other folks I’ve read
stuff from. I appreciate you for posting when you’ve
got the opportunity, Guess I will just book mark this
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I so enjoy your site and your recipes. Would you please consider adding a print option so we can enjoy your recipes a little more easily. Thank you.
In the desktop view there is a print button in the recipe section just under the recipe’s name. This particular recipe needs to be put in an updated format. I’m not sure that there is a print button for this format from the phone. Thanks for letting me know. I’m planning to do a major makeover to the site soon (as in the first part of 2020), so if there are other changes you’d like to see, or other blogs you find easy to navigate, please email me.
Annissa