Okay so I am playing fast and loose here with the term “salad,” I realize that. If you’ve been keeping up with my posts, you know I have some very serious opinions about what constitutes a salad.

According to my definition, this is not a salad. This is some other kind of appetizer. But if you’re like me, you have an aversion to reheating leftover steak from the steakhouse. Other than tossing the leftovers into a pot to make a stock or a broth what can do with the meat, especially if you ate like a pussy and there’s a lot of nice slices left?

Once in a while my wife and I will cut it up small and toss it in with some fried rice or something, but this steak “salad” is a really fun and quick way to make a pre-dinner, cold food item.

This recipe is a little something I picked up from my dad, who used to make this with leftover steaks as well. We called it “meat salad” around the house.

The first thing you do is cut up the steak remnants into small, thin pieces. Try to cut against the bias so that you simultaneously tenderize the meat. While cutting, you can remove some of the excess fat or gristle. Keep that in the freezer for the next time you make beef stock or broth.

You’re almost done already. Place the meat into a bowl and drizzle on some olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette. Then toss with some salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion flakes and crushed red pepper. If you have any cheeses in the fridge, this dish goes really nice with some shaved pecorino or parmesan, or crumbled blue cheese, on top.

That does it. Really simple item to make with leftover steak.