Tuscan Sliced Steak (Tagliata) with White Beans and Arugula

Why this recipe works for muscle gain

Lean sirloin is the cheapest 32 g of protein in the meat case. Top sirloin with the fat trimmed is 131 calories and 22.3 g of protein per 100 g raw, with 4.1 g of fat of which 1.6 g is saturated. That puts it under 93% lean ground beef (152 calories, 21.4 g of protein, 7 g of fat) and chuck (145 calories, 21.3 g), and within half a gram of protein per 100 g of skinless chicken breast — at a third of the price per pound of tenderloin or veal. The 5 oz raw portion each person gets here carries about 32 g of protein on its own; the beans add 10 and the Parmigiano shavings 2, which is how the plate reaches 45 g while the whole thing stays at 496 calories and 22 g of fat.

45 g is one full feeding, and beef protein is the kind that triggers one. The practical per-meal target for someone training is roughly 0.4 g of protein per kg of body weight across three to five feedings (Schoenfeld & Aragon, 2018), with the daily point of diminishing returns near 1.6 g per kg and a plausible ceiling around 2.2 (Morton et al., 2018). One plate covers a feeding for an adult of up to about 110 kg. Beef is also a complete protein with a high leucine fraction — leucine being the amino acid that actually starts the muscle-protein-synthesis response — which is why a mixed plate like this one does not need a shake behind it. The day's arithmetic is in our guide on how much protein you need to build muscle.

The beans do the carbohydrate, the fiber and the price. Two 15 oz cans, drained, are 510 g of cannellini: 26 of the plate's 30 g of carbohydrate and 8 of its 9.4 g of fiber, against the 25 to 34 g of fiber a day adults are told to get and almost never do. Thirty grams of carbohydrate is a training dinner, not a carb-load — if the point of the evening is to fill glycogen before a long run, the carb-loading guide and the endurance recipes are built for that and this is not. What it is good for is the evening after lifting, when the job is protein with enough starch to recover on. The rest of the muscle-gain recipes are sized the same way.

Two honest numbers: the red meat and the sodium. Red meat is the one protein on this site that comes with a ceiling rather than an encouragement — IARC classified it as probably carcinogenic to humans (Group 2A) in 2015, and the Dietary Guidelines ask for lean cuts in modest amounts rather than daily beef. Five ounces raw, once or twice a week, inside a week that otherwise runs on fish, poultry and legumes, is the frame this recipe is written for; the Tuscan tuna and white bean salad gets to 40 g of protein with no meat at all. The other number is sodium: 763 mg a plate, and 382 mg of that — half — is the canned beans, before any salt is added in the pan. Draining and rinsing them takes about 41% of it out (Duyff et al., 2011), which is why step 3 says rinse and the recipe adds no salt to the beans at all.

Tips from our kitchen

• Thickness matters more than weight. One 1¼-inch steak beats two ¾-inch steaks of the same total weight, every time: a thin steak reaches 130°F in the middle before the outside has browned, so you get no crust and a uniformly pink interior. If the case only has thin steaks, buy a thick one and slice the raw steak in half horizontally later for two meals — or sear thin ones 90 seconds a side and accept a paler crust.
• A dry surface is half the crust. Water has to boil off before browning can start, so a wet steak steams for the first ninety seconds. Pat it dry when it comes out of the fridge and again right before it goes in the pan. If you remember a night ahead, salt it and leave it uncovered on a rack in the fridge: the surface dries out properly and sears in half the time.
• Open a window and skip the butter. This is a hard sear in a dry pan and it smokes. Olive oil is fine at this heat for the three minutes it is in there — the pan is nowhere near its smoke point when there is a cold steak sitting in it — but a knob of butter added at the start will be black before the first turn. Butter belongs in the last thirty seconds, if at all.
• No thermometer? Use the thickness, then cut and look. For a 1¼-inch sirloin, 3½ minutes a side over medium-high is close to medium-rare on most home stoves. Then cut into the thickest part before it rests: if it is redder than you want, the slices go back into the hot pan for twenty seconds. Nobody at the table will know, and it is a better outcome than guessing by pressing it with a finger, which is unreliable on anything this thick.
• Dried beans, if you have the afternoon. Half a pound of dried cannellini soaked overnight and simmered 60 to 75 minutes with a sage leaf and a garlic clove is better than any can, mostly because the cooking liquid becomes part of the sauce. The nutrition table on this page is calculated for canned, so the numbers shift if you go that way — downward on sodium, which is the one that matters here.

Variations

• The classic, with nothing but arugula and Parmigiano. Skip the beans entirely: steak, dressed arugula, shavings, oil, salt. This is what tagliata means on most Italian menus, it takes 20 minutes, and it is 275 calories and 34 g of protein a plate — a lighter dinner, but no longer one with carbohydrate in it.
• With a cheaper cut, sliced stricter. Flank, skirt or bavette cost less and have more flavor; they also have a coarser, more obvious grain, so they must be cut thin and dead across it. Sear 2½ to 3 minutes a side, pull at 125°F, and rest the full 10 minutes.
• Over the coals, which is where it belongs. On a charcoal grill: steak dry and salted, grate wiped and hot, 2 to 3 minutes a side directly over the coals, then across to the cool side with the lid on if the center is still under 120°F. The beans can sit on the grate in a pan at the edge.
• The beans on their own, as a vegetarian main. Fagioli all'uccelletto with a slice of grilled bread rubbed with garlic is a Tuscan supper in its own right; double the recipe, let it go 25 minutes instead of 15 so it thickens, and finish with raw oil. For the same idea taken further, the ribollita is what Tuscan cooks do with yesterday's bread and beans.
• For the same protein without red meat, the saltimbocca alla romana reaches 47 g in half an hour in one skillet, and the sheet-pan chicken parmesan gets to 56 g in the oven.

Storage & meal prep

The honest answer is that the steak does not keep as a hot dish and no container changes that: reheated medium-rare beef is medium-well beef with dry edges. What it does do is keep beautifully cold. Wrap the sliced steak tight and it holds 3 days in the fridge, and on day two it is a lunch rather than a leftover — the slices over the rest of the arugula with a squeeze of lemon, or in a ciabatta roll with the cold beans spread in it like a pâté. Do not slice what you are not eating: a steak kept whole and sliced the next day loses far less juice. The beans keep 4 days and genuinely improve for the first two as the sage settles into them; they also freeze for 3 months, which is an argument for cooking a double batch while the pan is out. Reheat them over low heat with a splash of water, never in the microwave on full power, which bursts the skins. Dress only the arugula you are serving; dressed greens are finished in an hour.