Marinated in a combination of sweet and savory flavors (with a splash of bourbon), these Traeger grilled bourbon steak tips come together in a quick hour and result in a delicious and tender dinner option. Served with some grilled onions and mashed potatoes, it is the perfect quick Traeger grilled winter meal.

If you were to come into my house, you’d quickly find out that I love to collect interesting and delicious bourbons. While I don’t get the chance to enjoy a drink as often as I wish (hello twins!), I do try to enjoy a glass– neat, of course– a couple of times a week. So when my wife suggested we make a recipe using bourbon as part of a marinade, I was both excited and perplexed. I certainly didn’t want to use something too rare or valuable, but also didn’t want to shortchange the recipe.

So I grabbed my go-to bourbon for cooking– Buffalo Trace– and got ready to pull together a delicious and quick meal for the family. Marinating while the grill gets hot, we can usually whip together this dinner in under an hour and the leftovers are something I look forward to eating at work the next day for lunch. These Traeger Grilled Bourbon Steak Tips will become a family favorite and because they grill hot and fast on the Traeger, they’re great for a cold winter night– much less time required standing in the cold while you cook!

PRIMARY INGREDIENTS FOR BOURBON STEAK TIPS

Steak tips or tenderloin pieces- we source ours from Snake River Farms
Bourbon
Brown Sugar
Soy Sauce
Garlic
Worchestershire sauce
Oil
My Garlic Junkie seasoning from Spiceology
Sweet white onion

For this recipe, we kept it super simple to ensure that the flavor of the ingredients we used came through. Brown sugar is a critical ingredient in this recipe because it carmelizes really well on the hot grill and adds a new dimension to the finished dish. Because these bourbon steak tips are cooked hot on cast iron, you can get great all-around searing and the brown sugar gets slightly sticky and coats the meat really well.

WHY COOKING THIS ON THE TRAEGER WORKS

As you know, cooking on the Traeger year-round is one of my favorite things to do. Of course, doing so during snowstorms and cold spells is a little unpleasant, but because of the versatile ways you can use a Traeger– low and slow or hot and fast– you can cook according to how long you want to be outside.

A Traeger, with its wood-pellet fuel, is designed to have a constant source of heat for both long and short cooks. No need to go out and stoke the fire during a snowstorm if you’re slow-smoking a pork shoulder in your Traeger. And likewise, when cranked up to high heat, the Traeger produces really consistent and even heat for searing things like burgers, chicken, and of course these Bourbon Steak Tips!

I like to use my Traeger Ranger for an application like this because it’s compact and quick to get hot. But if you have another Traeger model, doing the same kind of high-heat, quick cooking on cast iron is easy to do. All you need to do is put a cast-iron skillet or griddle in the Traeger while it heats up and you’ll have the perfect, screaming hot surface on which to cook these Bourbon Steak Tips.

STEP-BY-STEP

Make the marinade for the steak.
In a dish or bowl, combine the bourbon, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, garlic, oil and garlic junky and whisk until the brown sugar dissolves.
To the marinade mixture, add the steak pieces. Turn to coat evenly.
Slice the sweet white onion into ½” thick rings and place in the marinade with the steak, turning to coat. .
Cover the mixture and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes (and preferably 30) while the grill gets hot.
Preheat your Traeger Grill to high heat (450* on most grills) and place a cast iron pan, griddle or insert inside to let it get really hot.
When the grill is hot, add a little oil to the cast iron.
Remove the steak from the marinade and place pieces on a paper towel to allow the extra sauce to run off.
Grill the steak pieces on the grill until just cooked through and brown on all sides.
While the steak is cooking, also grill the onion rings until tender.
Remove meat from grill and allow to rest for 5 minutes, then serve.

RECIPES SIMILAR TO BOURBON STEAK TIPS TO TRY

Maybe I should make a Cooking with Bourbon category on my blog? Because as they say, everything is better with bourbon. Definitely use a fairly nice bourbon for this recipe, which will be worth it. And since you need such a small amount, there will still be plenty to enjoy alongside dinner.

Other recipes that I’ve used bourbon in include:

Palisade Peach Bourbon Crisp
Scallops in an Old Fashioned sauce
And my favorite spatchcocked turkey that brined in a mixture including bourbon

Products used in this cook:

Traeger Grill- I used my Traeger Ranger with the cast iron plate, but you could definitely use any model of Traeger you have
Cast iron griddle or pan if you don’t have a Ranger insert
Cambro pan

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