Merlot-Peppercorn Steak Sauce

  3.8 – 45 reviews  • Sauces

This red wine peppercorn sauce is simple to make and cooks quickly. When poured over a top sirloin or a large porterhouse steak, it tastes delicious!

Prep Time: 10 mins
Cook Time: 10 mins
Total Time: 20 mins
Servings: 4

Ingredients

  1. 1 tablespoon butter
  2. 4 mushrooms, sliced
  3. 1 clove garlic, minced
  4. 2 tablespoons whole black peppercorns
  5. ¼ cup Merlot wine
  6. 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
  7. 3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
  8. ½ teaspoon minced fresh rosemary

Instructions

  1. Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir in mushrooms, garlic, and peppercorns, and sauté until mushrooms are tender. Pour in wine, balsamic, and Worcestershire sauce, increase the heat to medium-high and reduce by 1/3. Stir in rosemary and cook for 1 to 2 minutes, until fragrant.

Nutrition Facts

Calories 62 kcal
Carbohydrate 6 g
Cholesterol 8 mg
Dietary Fiber 1 g
Protein 1 g
Saturated Fat 2 g
Sodium 149 mg
Sugars 2 g
Fat 3 g
Unsaturated Fat 0 g

Reviews

Charlotte Bird
I added some beef broth and the combo was fabulous! Thanks
Clinton Hill
Reduce peppercorns to 1 tbl.
Grace Leonard
Really nice peppercorn sauce. I prefer a heavy amount of peppercorn. Tweak this to fit your taste.
Brandon Grimes
This is not a sauce in my world…it was a strong tasting concoction that overpowered everything on the plate. Would never recommend.
Mark Nelson
Followed the suggestions of other reviewers and halved the amount of peppercorn and doubled the amount of merlot. I thought it was good. Not great, but worth trying again.
Sara Jones
This sauce way to acidic for us. The first batch I made as written, then I added more wine, mushrooms and garlic. I added a tsp of sugar to even out the acids and finished with some butter. #AllrecipesAllstarsCanada #ForThoseYouLove
Anna Alvarez
Very nice but needed more red wine! Also, I served it over grilled tuna steak and sautéed green beans not meat and it was divine, yummy.
Ryan Collins
Quite good and relatively easy. I used 2 and a halfway tablespoons of peppercorns and only 2 tablespoons of Worcestershire sauce and increased the wine from 1/4 to 1/2
Jessica Curry
Excellent. Yes, I used less vinegar/Worcestershire more cooking wine and a bit of cornstarch to thicken!
Stacy Ballard
Sauce was very good. Loved the Rosemary and balsamic vinegar combination along with the wine.
Tanya Perry
I added 3 tablespoons of balsamic vinegar
Donald Cook
Way too much pepper, not enough wine. Idea was good and I will adapt it properly next time.
Lauren Sexton
This sauce came out great for my skirt steaks but i added some more ingredients . I added heavy cream and although it came a bit watery i kept adding puffs of flour and mixing right away after each time i drop flour so it dont sticky to each other and form a dough like ball. It came more creamy and not as winey like this recipe . It had to much vinegar so the heavy cream helps out alot.
Jocelyn Wilson
This is the worst sauce I have ever eaten.
Christopher Casey
Needs more detailed directions as to when to turn over the steak, so it remains tender.
Curtis Goodman
Just fantastic. As others have mentioned, this is not really a sauce, but rather a reduction. I’ve prepared this recipe five or six times but have reduced the amount of peppercorns to one tablespoon and actually have ground them up into a coarse texture. I dice the rosemary as well. After grilling the New York strips (medium rare) I slice the steaks into 1/4 inch strips then apply the ‘sauce’. This is my ‘go to’ recipe if I want to impress company.
Rachel Garcia
I tried this without advance planning, so had to go with ingredients I had on hand (canned mushrooms, cracked pepper, cabernet sauvignon instead of merlot) and it was still excellent! Thanks to other reviewers, I used only 1 Tbl of Worcestershire, and a little extra wine. LOVED IT! —————- I have made this a lot since my first review – it’s my husband’s absolute favorite thing! It is even better with fresh mushrooms, etc., but I still use cracked pepper by choice, because I prefer not to bite into whole peppercorns. This recipe is very forgiving – almost any (not-too-sweet) red wine will work, and the measurements don’t have to be precise. You’d have to work hard to mess this up!
Heather Stanley
I used an 8 oz container of sliced mushrooms and 1/4 t. of dried rosemary instead of 1/2 t. of fresh rosemary. The flavor of the mushrooms and sauce was great, but we picked around all the peppercorns. Next time I’ll probably just use 1 T. freshly ground black pepper and see how that goes.
Deborah Nelson
This was pretty good. I used the recipe exactly as written and we thought it was missing something. It needed heat and we thought the sauce could be thicker as well. I doubled the recipe and once cooked I removed the peppercorns as they were hard and a distraction. In another pan I made a butter/flour roux then added back the liquid from the recipe. To that we added about 1/3 cup Sriracha Sauce for some heat. It only took a minute to thicken up and I added the mushrooms back in. The sauce was savory, tangy with a little punch of heat and it held onto the mushrooms and steak perfectly. I also used two 8oz containers of mushrooms. The recipe is a good base and I will use it again with my changes as we all really enjoyed it. Going to add shallots next time…..
Jonathan Sandoval
Recipe is way to acidic. Benefits from cutting back on the Worcester sauce, cutting out the Balsamic altogether and adding some cream to balance the acidity.
Gabrielle Nelson
We tried this and really liked it. I did change it up also. I used smoked garlic that I got at our farmers market and also after taking the steaks out of the pan I deglazed pan with the sauce. I wll try it with cream as suggested as that sound good too.

 

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