Single serving Beef Wellington’s as an easy freezer meal. Yes Please!!
This is such a fun freezer meal. It has the stigma of being difficult to make but in reality this freezer meal is not that hard. We will take it one step at a time and before you know it you’ll be serving up this gourmet dinner at your next dinner party.
Lets start with the deuxelle. This is our mushroom mix. We’ll be using a combination of baby ports and button mushrooms but feel free to mix it up a bit. A combination of chanterelle and porcini make for a great wellington as well. To make this mushroom mix you’ll want to finely chop up your mushrooms. A food processor makes this an easy task. Once they are finely chopped add a touch of salt and a touch of fresh thyme. Set this mix to the side.
Our next task is the beef. Take your whole filet mignon and trim off any undesirable pieces. Cut your Filet muscle into 6oz steaks. Brush your steaks with olive oil and season lightly with cracked pepper and salt. On a hot cast iron skillet sear the sides of your steak.
You are searing not cooking!!
Searing needs to happen hot and fast. If your skillet isn’t hot enough you’ll end up cooking the steak and you don’t want that.. I use a 17 inch Lodge Cast Iron Skillet for this. It’s big, bad, and gets the job done every time!!
Once your steaks are seared remove them from the heat and coat them in English mustard. Wrap them in cling film to preserve their shape and place them in the freezer to cool.
In the same cast iron skillet lower the heat to a medium/high and add your mushroom deuxelle. Cook on this heat stirring occasionally till you have cooked the moisture out of it. Your mushroom deuxelle is finished once all the liquid has been cooked out.
Once you’ve assembled your wellington and you’ve got it in the freezer your next biggest challenge is cooking it. This is where things get a little tricky. I’ve cooked this many different ways but the best way to cook your easy freezer meal beef wellington is to insert a temperature probe right in the middle of it. This will read the temp and let you know exactly when it’s ready. I’ve found the DOT by Thermaworks to be the most cost effective and reliable on the market place. As soon as your probe reads the appropriate temperature it’s ready!!
Enjoy the recipe and the video. If you have any questions be sure to let me know.
Easy Freezer Meals Amazon Storefront
Beef Wellington
Ingredients
- 1 whole filet mignon
- ½ lb button mushrooms
- ½ lb baby ports
- 12 oz prosciutto
- 1 cup English mustard
- 2 sheets puff pastry dough
- 1 pinch fresh thyme
- salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
Making the Deuxelles
- Chop the mushrooms into chunks. Place chopped mushrooms in your food processor and pulse them until they are very finely chopped (almost like a paste). Season lightly with a touch of salt and pepper with some fresh thyme leaves. Go very light on the salt.. (set this aside for now)
- Cut some 6oz filet steaks. make sure you pat them dry and season them with salt and cracked pepper. On a hot (VERY HOT) cast iron skillet or whatever you have add a little oil and sear each side of the steaks. You do not want to cook the steaks only sear them so be sure not to leave them on the heat too long, A HOT SKILLET is the key here.
- Remove the steaks and while they are hot coat them in English mustard, Wrap in cling film and place in the freezer (Be sure to watch the video to see how I did it)
- In the same skillet on a lower temp add your mushrooms and all the liquid that had come off of them. Allow the liquid to completely cook out until there is no more liquid remaining. Remove the mushrooms and let cool.
Time to assemble the wellington:
- On a piece of cling film place several pieces of prosciutto. Rub your mushroom paste all over the cured meat. Get your steak that's been in the freezer and remove the cling film. Place it on your cured meat/mushroom mixture and roll tightly. After its all rolled up place in the freezer to firm up for about 45 minutes. (watch video to see how I did it)
- Finally get your puff pastry and roll it out. 1/8 inch is about the thinnest you want but you can go a little thicker. Just not too thick. Get your wellington from the freezer and remove it from the cling film. Place it on the center of your puff pastry. In a ramekin mix 1 egg yolk with 1 tsp of water, brush this all around the edges of your pastry (this will be your glue). Fold the pastry around your wellington and make sure to seal all the edges tightly (you don't want any leaks!!)
- trim excess dough away as needed, just make sure that your wellington is completely covered by pastry and there are no tears or rips in your dough (easier to do if its not too thin).
- You are now FINISHED Let your wellington firm up in the freezer before placing it in a food saver bag or before wrapping tightly in seran wrap and placing it in a zip lock bag. If you freezer save it (our recommendation) it will be good and retain freshness for up to 1 year. If you wrap in seran it will be good for 3 months-5 months. Be sure to label it and write the date..
To cook it:
- Preheat your oven to 400F – 425F. Remove wellington from package and brush some egg yolk/water mixture all over the top. Score the top (with a pairing knife) with a cool design to impress your friends and neighbors. Place your frozen Beef Wellington in your preheated oven on a baking tray or a cast iron skillet (what we do) and let it cook.
- Cooking times will be very relative to the size of your steak, your altitude, your oven. Our recommendation is to get a good kitchen thermometer and about 35 minutes into the cook check your temperature by sticking the thermometer in a discrete area of your wellington. Be sure to stick the thermometer all the way to the center of the steak to get an accurate reading. We found that 35-40 minutes was producing med rare. 45-50 was producing medium and 50-60 minutes was producing medium well. Over that then your wellington isn’t worth eating 🙂
- Med Rare (135F) Medium (145F) medium Well (150F)
Nutrition
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This turned out great! I doubted the cooking times to be honest and my wife even suggested defrosting the beef wellingtons before cooking.
I did not follow her advice and not should you. Stick to the times in the times in this recipe. My daughter is pregnant and will only eat medium well to well done. We cooked Hera for 50 minutes and it was well done, though amazingly not dried out. For the rest of us, 35 minutes was great.
The mushroom was amazing flavor. I wish I made more. Will do this again.