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Porterhouse ready to eat with yellow squash and roasted potatoes.

A porterhouse steak is one of our go-to options when cooking a very special, romantic meal. A porterhouse steak is a huge portion including large cuts of the tenderloin and strip steak. While you can purchase thin cuts for one person, the brilliance of a porterhouse is in buying a single thick cut, giving it a rich sear and garlic butter glaze, and serving in slices for two. So pick a romantic spot, pour a strong red wine, stoke up the literal and metaphorical flames with this enduring classic.

Porterhouse Steak Recipe

Serves 2

Ingredients

  • Porterhouse steak, 2-inch thick cut at room temperature
  • 2 cups of mushrooms, sliced
  • Two garlic cloves
  • 2 tablespoons of butter
  • 1/4 cup of red wine
  • sea salt
  • pepper, roughly ground
  • olive oil

Equipment

Porterhouse ready to eat with yellow squash and roasted potatoes.
Porterhouse ready to eat with yellow squash and roasted potatoes.

Directions

The art of the porterhouse is to achieve a rich sear while evenly cooking the interior. Before doing anything else, set the porterhouse steak out at room temperature half-an-hour before you plan to cook it. This will allow the steak to cook much more quickly and evenly.

Steak

  1. Heat skillet with a tablespoon of olive oil
  2. Liberally cover steak with salt and pepper
  3. When skillet is so hot that the olive oil starts smoking, carefully set steak in skillet with garlic
  4. After 4 minutes or once the steak has reached a deep brown sear, transfer it to a cutting board, seared side up
  5. Cut steak away from bone
  6. Slice the tenderloin and strip steak in 3/4-inch slices, parallel to the bone
  7. Reassemble steak around bone in the skillet
  8. Spread one tablespoon of butter over seared steak
  9. Cover skillet and return steak to heat and cook to your desired degree of doneness (4-6 minutes).
  10. Remove steak from skillet and set aside to cool
  11. Leave any remaining butter and steak juices in skillet
Porterhouse ready to eat with yellow squash and roasted potatoes.
Porterhouse ready to eat with yellow squash and roasted potatoes.

Mushrooms

  1. In same skillet drop mushrooms, wine, and remaining tablespoon of butter.
  2. Mix ingredients and scrape any seared salt and fat from the bottom of the skillet
  3. Simmer mushrooms until mushrooms are soft and wine and butter mixture is reduced to a sauce.
Sautéing mushrooms in the remaining steak juices and some dry red wine.

Parings

Oh, this is going to be a treat. So make sure to tie it together with your favorite sides. To me, you can never go wrong with some Roasted Potatoes. Of course, this is a heavier dish, so we like to lighten it up with a vegetable side such as Grilled Zucchini with mozzarella or Tin Foil Green Beans. For us, the dish isn’t complete without a full bodied red wine such as a Cabernet or even a Malbec.

Lost Dutchman State Park may be crowded and noisy, but it has a view that you cannot find anywhere else.
I like to keep dinner simple: just a few vegetables and a porterhouse steak.
Cast iron skillet seared porterhouse steak and artichoke.
Cast iron skillet seared porterhouse steak and artichoke.
Porterhouse steak ready to eat.
Porterhouse steak ready to eat.

Lexi lives in a truck camper down by the river.

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