I’ve been making a lot of cheese steaks lately, I posted about it here:
You can partially freeze and slice thin as others have said. I also have one of these which is awesome and totally easy to clean: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=manual+meat+slicer&ref=nb_sb_noss
As for tips and tricks - I’ll chop of the fat bits from the steak and start with that in the pan to get it rendered, or if i don’t have excess fat bacon fat is awesome too. Throw in onions, then meat. Let them hang in their own side of the pan. Don’t worry about getting the steak in any special configuration, just let them go wherever in the pan and just give it a press to make contact. As someone mentioned above, “real” philly cheesesteak is more steamed than seared, because they are cooking such large quantities. The trick to getting that seared brown flavor at home is to toss your stuff in the pan and leave it alone. Get the onions almost burned, same with the steak. You can even do like a partially pink but well browned cheesesteak this way. You don’t even have to toss or flip the steaks around, the top will get pink while the bottom gets crusty.
For cheese it’s personal pref but I am heavily biased towards gooey yellow cheese. Velveeta, butter and half and half is what I use. You mentioned mushrooms, I don’t think it’s a worthwhile addition to a cheesesteak but if you want mushrooms I would highly recommend the Cook’s illustrated method, you can find a video on Youtube by searching for America’s test kitchen mushrooms.
If you have a slicer or can slice thin enough, basically any cut is fine. Ribeye is classic but there are famous places that are using round. As long as its thin and you hit it with enough beef or bacon fat it will taste fine. Chuck would probably be the best bang for the buck. As for why using something like ribeye - there’s this misconception that you can’t tell shitty lean meat when it’s cooked through but it’s actually the opposite. Fatty cuts shine most compared to others especially when it is cooked through, because the fat keeps it juicy. The whole “cook the shitty steak for the well done eater” thing is absolute nonsense.
Bread doesn’t even really matter after that, I wouldn’t focus on getting any specific type of bread, use what you like! In the linked picture I used a sliced bread that’s a bit airy and has some chew. Toasted up it goes really good with a cheesesteak giving it a nice crunch even though it’s far from traditional. You generally have a choice to go with a soft steamy vs toasted crispy, and both are great depending on what you’re looking for.
And along the lines of the smashburger you mentioned… check out chopped cheese recipes, it’s basically a burger/cheesesteak baby.
