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Grilling 24x7 » Recipes » Beef Recipes » Using a Food Processor to Slice Steak for Cheesesteaks!

Using a Food Processor to Slice Steak for Cheesesteaks!

by Frank Campanella 6 Comments

How To Slice Steak With A Food Processor
For Authentic Philly Cheesesteaks

Food processor cheesesteaks -

Homemade cheesesteaks are probably one of the greatest things I’ve ever made. Cheesesteaks also work well for tailgating. My only gripe with the whole process is that I find the slicing of the meat to be extremely tedious. I use one of the low end Costco meat slicers, which cost about $100, and it has been in use for about 4 years now. The way I normally do it is to freeze a whole ribeye roast (extremely expensive) for about 30 minutes to 1 hour and then slowly slice the meat as thin as possible. After about 6-7 pounds of meat has been sliced you can hear the poor slicer motor struggling to make the final cuts. This process takes at least an hour and afterwards all the raw meat needs to be cleaned out of each component of the meat slicer, most of which aren’t dishwasher safe.

There has to be a better way.

I knew that my Cuisinart food processor had a slicing attachment, but I never thought about using it for meat. I’ve only used it for onions, actually.

Food processor cheesesteaks -

Most food processors come with both shredding and slicing attachments. The shredding attachment looks more like a cheese grater and the slicing attachment looks like one big sharp curved blade (see above).

Food processor cheesesteaks -

My local grocery store had sirloin steaks on sale. Normally I use whole ribeye roasts for making homemade cheesesteaks. The reason I always go with ribeye is that the real Philly cheesesteak companies, at least Jim’s Steaks (which I consider the best), use ribeye. The only problem with this is that each steak sub roughly costs about $10 when you factor in how much it costs to buy a whole ribeye roast. Even from Costco each roast can be as much as $50-60 each. A cheesesteak tailgate might cost about $120 in meat alone! Craziness!

Food processor cheesesteaks -

I put the sirloin steaks in the freezer for about 25 min. This helps with slicing. I used the 2 mm slicing blade and dropped the meat into the top of the food processor. You can use any size blade you like as long as you are happy with the thickness of each slice.

Food processor cheesesteaks - slicing sirloin steak

Wow! 20 seconds later all of the meat was sliced almost identically to how the meat turns out after using the meat slicer.

Food processor cheesesteaks -

I placed all of the sliced meat on a hot griddle with a few tablespoons of oil and after about 10 minutes I had perfect meat for cheesteaks. Slicing steaks with a food processor is a really easy way to make cheesesteak meat. All of the slicing components of the standard Cuisinart food processor are dishwasher safe, so I put them right in the dishwasher after rinsing them with some hot water to remove the larger pieces of meat that were left behind.

Also of note, this is the first time I made cheesesteaks using cheap sirloin steaks. I was extremely surprised that I could barely tell the difference from the normal ribeye. Ribeye roasts are significantly fatty, which makes the meat taste fantastic when cooked on a griddle. I also end up wasting a lot of the ribeye roast since I usually discard the larger pieces of fat. The sirloin steak was much leaner and to accommodate for this, I simply added oil to the griddle. The meat was also seasoned with salt and pepper.

Cheesesteak made from sliced sirloin

This was a damn good cheesesteak. Normally I’m all about the “fake cheese” Cheese Whiz, along with thin sliced onions, but for this experiment I went with simple onions and peppers (also sliced on the food processor using the same blade) and provolone cheese. It was a winner! It was also dirt cheap with minimal cleanup.  Using a food processor to slice steak for cheesesteaks is a time saving winner!

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Comments

  1. Dan

    December 27, 2015 at 7:42 pm

    Thanks for the ideas. I was looking for food processor philly meat because I never used it for that. I have lots of yummy left over Prime Rib from the Christmas Dinner and wanted to do something else with it. the other ingredients sound good too.

    ~Dan

    Reply
  2. Chris C

    March 04, 2016 at 5:30 pm

    Good tip: use top round, then render some fat trimmings to make tallow. After a lot of trial and error, I reverse-engineered this trick from Jim’s steaks on South St, which I used to live a block away from. I give away steaks at art festivals, and they get awesome reviews.

    Reply
  3. Gloria Lidgard

    July 15, 2016 at 5:25 pm

    You just saved me lots of money. I now can slice my flat iron steak and make chip steak sandwiches. I moved from Pa. and haven’t had a chip steak sandwich for
    25 years. I was going to buy a slicer but now I don’t have to. I have a vegetable
    food processor just like you showed. Thank you so much. I already put the meat in the freezer. Have to slice up onions and peppers. Bless you. Gloria

    Reply
  4. Andrew Lieberman

    August 11, 2016 at 6:57 pm

    I am from Philly and live on the West. I was determined to make my own. Yes I bought a used professional slicer but it is a Pain as you described above. However I have been using Top Sirloin for years and it is great. Less then half the price of Rib Eye and it is superior to Rib Eye. Less waste and better consistency in the texture of the meat. Rib Eye has many grain types in it and more gristle and solid fat areas. I love Rib Eye when I make a 2 inch thick for dinner. I wonder If Pats actually uses Rib Eye. Also keep in mind when you slice it paper thin it is almost impossible to tell the difference. Everyone I have served mine to for 25 years loves them

    Reply
  5. joe

    October 19, 2017 at 12:32 pm

    Good post. I’m planning on making some with eye round to make it as lean as possible. I’ll use some oil and season it to make up for the lack of fat. One suggestion I would make is to try it with American cheese. I grew up in Boston eating them this way, and after having Pat’s and Geno’s with wiz and having them with provolone also, I still go for the American cheese everytime. I just melts and marries so perfectly and the sharp flavor of American cheese really contributes considering how much volume of steak and bread there is.

    Reply
  6. Iconoclast19

    February 02, 2023 at 1:42 am

    Thank you for the article! I wish you had posted a picture of some slices laid out with a quarter or something for reference so that I could see them how big they are. I am wondering if this would work for slicing meat for beef jerky.

    Reply

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