Treat yourself to a restaurant-style meal at home by cooking a tenderloin filet with red wine mushroom sauce!
When you want to enjoy a date night at home, celebrate an occasion like Valentine’s Day, entertain your classy friends, or just make a Wednesday feel super classy, our tenderloin filet with red wine mushroom sauce is a simple recipe to cook that will instantly turn your atmosphere to “fancy.”
The savory, earthy notes of the mushroom and wine-based sauce add a burst of flavor to the tenderloin filet that really enhances the meal. The sauce is cooked in the same pan as the filets, and only takes about ten minutes while the steak rests, so it doesn’t add much time, work, or dishes to your evening.
We promise that our tenderloin filet with red wine mushroom sauce recipe is straightforward and simple for you to cook, but we know when you’re cooking something special like filet, you may have a few questions in your head to get the recipe correct before you get started.
If you want to get cooking, scroll down to the ingredients, otherwise, here are the answers to a few frequently asked questions:
HOW DO YOU COOK THE STEAK FOR THIS TENDERLOIN FILET WITH RED WINE MUSHROOM SAUCE RECIPE?
We sear the filets on all sides in a cast iron skillet, which gives the filet a fantastic crust and leaves it nice and pink in the middle. It’s a classic way to cook tenderloin filet, and works well.
If you like a little bit more evenly cooked filet, we recommend using our sear then move to the oven filet recipe or, for the ultimate in evenly cooked steak, try our sous vide tenderloin filet recipe!
CAN I USE A DIFFERENT STEAK THAN TENDERLOIN FILET?
Tenderloin filets are very tender, but not the most flavorful of steaks. They are also a very expensive steak, since they are among the most limited cuts on a beef animal. If you prefer a different steak for flavor or cost reasons, you can still make this recipe. Here are some steaks you could use instead of tenderloin filet:
If you chose to make this recipe with one of the steaks I listed above, you can still follow the directions to sear the steak in a cast iron skillet, and then make the sauce in that pan, but you may need to sear your steaks in batches to avoid overcrowding the pan since each of those steaks is larger than a tenderloin filet.
WHAT TYPE OF MUSHROOMS DO YOU RECOMMEND USING FOR THIS RECIPE?
We used baby portabella mushrooms that were grown by our country neighbors at River Valley Ranch. The mushrooms are tender with a nice meaty flavor that is just perfect when you’re making a tenderloin filet with red wine mushroom sauce.
If you don’t have access to these mushrooms, or just prefer something different, there are plenty of other types of mushrooms that work for this recipe, such as:
White / Button Mushrooms
Cremini Mushrooms
Shitake Mushrooms
Chanterelle Mushrooms
WHAT TYPE OF WINE SHOULD I USE TO MAKE MY RED WINE MUSHROOM SAUCE?
The rule-of-thumb when making a wine sauce to serve with meat is to use a wine that you would pair with the meat to make the sauce. For a tenderloin filet, we would recommend pairing it with a lighter-bodied red such as Pinot Noir or Grenache.
In our case, we enjoyed a bottle of Pinot Noir with this meal, so we made our red wine mushroom sauce with Pinot Noir. Since this recipe doesn’t need a lot of wine, we used the bottle that we were serving for cooking as well.
However, if you don’t plan on drinking wine with the meal, or want to keep all of your wine to drink (especially if you’re opening an expensive bottle!), it is totally fine to buy an inexpensive bottle of wine to use for the sauce.
Finally, if you prefer a fuller-bodied red such as Merlot or Cabernet Sauvignon with the meal and would like to make your sauce with that wine, that works too! Your sauce will be a bit bolder and stronger in flavor than if you use Pinot Noir, but it will be a good pairing with the wine.
HOW DO YOU RECOMMEND SERVING MY TENDERLOIN FILET WITH RED WINE MUSHROOM SAUCE?
We serve this dish with rice and grilled asparagus, and it was a delicious meal. We like putting the filet on a bed of rice because it soaks up any extra sauce and tastes delicious!
Other possible side dishes include
Risotto (probably a better idea than rice, but I didn’t have time to make it for this meal!)
Mashed potatoes (also soaks up extra sauce)
Baked potoatoes
Green beans
Roasted Brussels sprouts
We hope we answered any questions you may have about our tenderloin filet with red wine mushroom sauce recipe, but if we didn’t, leave us a comment below and we’ll do our best to help you out with an answer!
Now on to the recipe – we hope you enjoy, and feel free to leave feedback after you’ve cooked. Thank you!
