Shave, Sear, Smash, and Chop Your Way to the Best Cheesesteak You've Ever Had

Ask who makes the best cheesesteak in Philly and you're likely to start a fight. for me, it's Dallesandro's in West Philadelphia. At Dallesandro's, they start by laying a massive pile of thinly shaved ribeye on a griddle. As the meat sizzles and steams, the cooks use a pair of spatulas to chop it up into small pieces, transferring them to a large pile on the side of the grill as they start to brown.

Order a cheesesteak and they'll pull a pile over, add some slices of the cheese of your choice (American or sharp provolone for me, please), add onions and dry hot peppers if you want them, then pile the whole thing onto an Amoroso roll.

It's a simple sandwich that relies on simple procedures and quality ingredients. What really makes it work is the way the chopped beef, cheese, and onions achieve a cosmic oneness. An integrated texture that doesn't feel like three separate elements stacked in a bun.

In the past, I've tried to recreate a great philly cheesesteak at home with various levels of success (the hardest part is finding the right bread!), but today, my goal is even bolder: I want to make a better cheesesteak. Not a replacement for a classic—but a version that leans harder into one thing cheesesteaks don’t usually focus on: browning.

Luckily, on a recent trip to Oaxaca, I found the inspiration to try.

Taco ’Bout a Revelation

Over the winter holidays, Tessa and I took a trip down to Oaxaca where we stayed Casona Sforza, a peaceful and beautiful hotel on the coast near Puerto Escondido. In the hotel is La Bóveda, a small restaurant run by Andrés Trujillo and Vanessa Franco. The food we had there over a few days was all exceptional—local ingredients used in uniquely creative and delicious ways—but the one dish that stood out to me the most was the simplest: a carne asada taco.

It doesn't seem particularly special on the menu, but at Andrés' insistence, we ordered it. Typically, carne asada tacos are made by marinating thin cuts of beef, grilling them until charred and well-done, then finely chopping them and tucking them into a tortilla. But La Bóveda took a different route. They started with ribeye shaved paper thin, then smashed it down onto a hot griddle and cooked it without moving until a deep, crisp, craggly crust developed before placing it on a corn tortilla.

The result was a carne asada taco with extraordinarily deep beef flavor due to the extreme Maillard browning. The layers of shaved beef were tender enough to bite through, but held fat and flavor in a completely different way than a seared steak or ground beef would. It was unlike any carne asada taco I'd ever had before.

It immediately got my wheels turning.

Sear-ious Smashing

Back home in Seattle, my first thought was that the flavors and textures in that taco closely resemble the flavors and textures in a smashburger, a subject I'm... intimately familiar with. (You can get my article and recipe here.) So I tried making a burger using shaved ribeye and chuck roll that they sell at the Asian supermarket for hot pot.

It was a smashing success. Enough so that I think I may start buying shaved beef regularly for my burgers in place of ground. The texture is incredible. The thin layers of beef pull apart like a flaky, beefy, fatty croissant, and the juiciness is unparalleled.

Given that this is the same beef I typically buy for making cheesesteaks, you can probably see where this is all going.

See, a traditional cheesesteak is wonderful. But the way the beef gets cooked, there's typically not a lot of deep, heavy browned flavor that develops. The massive piles of beef layered over the griddle really end up steaming more than searing. So what if I were to make a cheesesteak, but cooked it in a way that got the same level of intense browning as a smashed burger?

Know Your Roll

Before getting too far into the weeds, it’s worth examining what makes cheesesteak work in the first place. A great cheesesteak hinges on a few key things:

Thinly shaved beef (almost always ribeye, for its fat and flavor)

Enough fat to stay tender even after browning

Cheese that melts into the meat and acts as a binder

A roll that holds everything together without falling apart

Those are the fundamentals that I'd need to stick to in order to make sure any potential new method even has a chance of succeeding.

For my first attempt, I started with a mix of shaved ribeye and chuck roll—just like for the burger. I started by piling the shaved beef onto a cutting board and giving it a shape roughly the size and shape of the roll I was using (I find that locally, a good Vietnamese banh mi roll with its nice crust and soft interior is the best substitute for a Philly-style hoagie roll). I then seasoned the beef with salt, pepper, and a little MSG before lifting it with a spatula and transferring it to a hot griddle. From there, I let it sit without moving until it formed a nice crust underneath. I then flipped it, seasoned the second side, and laid a few slices of American cheese over the top to melt before tucking it all into the roll.

It was good—excellent even—but it was missing a couple things. I do like my cheesesteaks wit, which meant I'd need to find a way to incorporate the onions. The cheese also didn't feel integrated properly. Rather than binding the meaty mixture together, it was a separate layer in the sandwich.

The Steak-through Moment

Since I was thinking of the cheesesteak the way I think of a smashburger, why not try incorporating the onions in a similar way? To make an Oklahoma onion burger, a big pile of thinly sliced onions are placed on top of a beef patty before smashing everything down onto a griddle. On flipping, the seared beef ends up on top of a bed of onions which frizzle and char as the beef finishes cooking through in a cloud of onion vapor.

When applied to my cheesesteak, once again the technique worked well, delivering great flavor and a really unique eating experience, but it still tasted more like a shaved beef burger in cheesesteak form rather than the integrated structure of a true cheesesteak.

It was clear to me that to get the beef, onions, and cheese to form the oneness I was after, I'd need to lean further into traditional cheesesteak techniques.

Chop Til' You Drop

For my next attempt, I started with the same roll-shaped pile of fatty shaved beef. Instead of gently laying it on the griddle, I used the bottom of my spatula to smash it down a little bit in order to maximize surface browning.

Once the fat in the beef started rendering, I added some diced onions to the griddle and used the rendered beef fat to start to caramelize them. So far so good.

After flipping the entire patty over and noting how crisp and browned it had become, I topped it with a few slices of American cheese, just as before. But this time, instead of letting it sit to cook on the second side, I instead started chopping the beef, cheese, and onions together on the griddle with a pair of spatulas. For good measure I added a little pile of chopped Mama Lil's hot peppers (a local Pacific Northwest brand of pickled hot peppers).

This was the key. The chopped shaved beef bound with the cheese and mixed with the onions and peppers formed that unified whole I look for in a great cheesesteak, but this time with intense deeply browned beef flavor worked in throughout it.

Am I going to be so bold as to claim that this is a better cheesesteak than any I've had in Philly?

No way. I know that that's the kind of statement that can lead to significantly shortening my lifespan. And if I'm going to shorten my lifespan, it's going to be with cheesesteaks, not by testing the limits of brotherly love.

Recipe: Shaved, Smashed, and Seared Cheesesteaks

What I love about this recipe:

Keeps the core identity of a cheesesteak intact

Adds real crust and texture without losing tenderness

Uses accessible ingredients like pre-sliced beef

Delivers a more deeply savory, complex final sandwich

Yield: 1 large sandwich (easily doubled)Active Time: 15 minutesTotal Time: 20 minutes

Notes: Look for shaved beef at Asian supermarkets where it is typically sold for hot pot dishes. Look for nice, fatty cuts that are sliced as thinly as possible. If the meat department at your local supermarket or your local butcher is willing, you can ask them to thinly slice ribeye or chuck roll on a meat slicer for cheesesteaks.

It can be difficult to find a great hoagie roll outside of Philly. I use a Vietnamese-style banh mi roll here in Seattle, but any torpedo-style sub roll with a soft crumb and a crust that's crisp but not too dense will work. Avoid very hard breads like sourdough or baguettes.

For pickled peppers, and good jarred pickled pepper will work. I use Mama Lil's and chop them up by hand. Calabrian-style chilis or pickled hot cherry peppers are widely available and will also work well in this sandwich.

Ingredients

6 ounces (170g) very thinly sliced ribeye or chuck (see note)

Kosher salt

MSG (optional)

Freshly ground black pepper

½ medium yellow onion (about 3 ounces; 85g), finely diced

2–3 slices American or sharp provolone cheese

1 hoagie roll or similar (see note)

Pickled hot peppers (optional, see note)

Method

Prep the bread and beef: If your roll is stale, place it in a toaster oven preheated to 375° for 2 to 3 minutes to re-crisp it, then split in half, leaving it hinged along one side. On a cutting board or sheet tray, arrange the sliced beef into a loose rectangle roughly matching the size of the bread, then season with salt, MSG, and black pepper.

Sear without moving: Heat a griddle or large skillet over high heat. Do not add any fat. Add the beef and press it down firmly with a spatula, especially focusing on the edges, so it makes full contact with the griddle. Let it cook undisturbed until a deep crust develops on the first side, about five minutes.

Cook onions and flip: As soon as the beef has rendered some fat around it, add the diced onions into the rendered fat and cook, stirring them around occasionally, until lightly browned and tender. Once the beef has a good crust, scrape it up with a stiff spatula and flip it.

Melt, chop, and combine: Lay the cheese over the beef, then chop, fold, and mix the beef, cheese, onions, and peppers (if using) together until cohesive and fully melted, about 30 seconds.

Assemble and serve: Transfer everything into the roll, making sure to scrape up all the browned bits. Close the roll and, if desired, wrap tightly with foil or parchment before cutting in half and serving.