Parmesan Crusted Steak Recipe

Steaks are great. They’re beefy, tender, and delicious. They’re perfectly tasty seasoned only with salt and pepper, but it is super fun to amp up the flavor of your favorite steak with a topping or sauce. That’s why we love this Parmesan Crusted Steak recipe: it makes the steak go POW! The savory flavor of parmesan is the perfect match to the richness of the beef. It accentuates and deepens the flavor without overwhelming the beef.

Another reason we like this recipe so much is that it is simple to make but makes your steak look incredibly fancy. If you have guests coming over and want to make them feel a little extra special, cooking Parmesan Crusted Steak is going to make them feel like an A lister and you didn’t even have to do much extra work. You probably even have most of the ingredients for this topping in the pantry already!

To make this beautiful crust on the steak, we use a variation of the reverse sear cooking method where we first cook the steaks through with a low, indirect heat, then we finish the steaks with a high direct heat. This recipe really works best under a broiler, but can also be done on a grill. You just won’t get as much browning on your crust. That’s purely a cosmetic issue though, so if you don’t want to heat up the house, go ahead and grill these steaks!

Here are the answers to a few other questions you may have about this recipe:

What steak should I use for this parmesan crusted steak recipe?

We used a New York Strip Steak when we cooked the recipe at home and it worked really well. The shape of the steak held on to the topping very easily and then was easy to slice and serve after we were done cooking. We also had these steaks cut a little thicker than usual (1.25″ instead of 1″) to help them cook to the perfect temperature with the reverse sear method.

You can use other steaks if you don’t love a Strip Steak. Here are a few suggestions of other steaks that would be great for this recipe:

• Ribeye Steaks – also boneless, but with more marbling for more flavor.
• Cowboy Steaks – aka a frenched bone-in rib steak, the long bone protruding from the steak makes for an impressive presentation.
• T-Bone or Porterhouse Steaks – these are bone-in steaks with a bone separating the two sides of the steak, so it’s a bit harder to spoon the mixture on, but when you slice the steak for serving, these steaks can easily serve two people per steak.
• Flank Steaks – if you want to serve a crowd, these large, rectangular boneless steaks are easy to top with the parmesan crust mixture and slice and serve. Since these are a thinner steak, you only need to sear them and let them rest, not bake them first.

This parmesan crusted steak recipe would also work for a nice quality 1″ thick pork chop as well with no modifications – just keep an eye on temperature as it cooks, because you want your pork chops to be 145ºF when you serve them.

Can I use pre-grated parmesan cheese for my parmesan crusted steak?

You can definitely use pre-grated parmesan cheese for this recipe, but we prefer grating our own at home. The pre-grated cheese generally doesn’t melt or mix as well as freshly grated cheese, but it will work fine. You don’t need a ton of parmesan for this recipe, so it won’t take you long to grate the cheese you need for the crust.

Do you have side dish suggestions to enjoy with a parmesan crusted steak?

The parmesan topping feels Italian, and we leaned into that with our Italian seasoning in the mixture. So, we’d suggest serving this steak with Italian-feeling side dishes – we elected to go with a simple fresh tomato salad made with tomatoes we just picked in our garden. It was August, so we were in the height of tomato season! Here are some other suggestions for sides to serve with your parmesan crusted steak:

• Caprese salad to bring freshness to your meal.
• Tuscan white beans for a hearty side dish.
• Parmesan risotto to double down on parmesan flavor.
• Sautéed spinach with garlic and onion to get in a vegetable serving.
• Roasted potatoes with rosemary and oregano to add some aromatics to the meal.
• Breadsticks because breadsticks are delicious.

Really, if it’s Italian-ish, it’ll go great with these parmesan crusted steaks!

I like steak toppings, do you have other recipes to try?

Of course we do! Here are some of our favorites:

• Coffee Crusted Strip Steak
• Greek Seasoned T-Bone with Cucumber & Tomato Salad
• Caribbean Ribeye Steaks with Grilled Pineapple Salad
• Skirt Steak with Hatch Chile Sauce
• Grilled Ribeye Steak with Mojo Verde

I hope that answers all the questions you have about this Parmesan Crusted Steak recipe, but if you have more questions, feel free to leave a comment below and we’ll be happy to answer! If you made any tweaks or have other feedback, feel free to leave a rating and comment as well, we appreciate it.