CRJ700 Captain reported a Steering INOP Caution Message on climb out. The flight crew performed an air turn back and precautionary landing at departure airport.

Narrative

Our crew was operating Aircraft X from ZZZ to ZZZ1; we experienced a steering inop caution message and returned to ZZZ. On departure out of ZZZ Runway XXL from Intersection X; we experienced a normal takeoff followed by a Steering Inop caution message at approximately 1;000 ft. on climb out. We acknowledged the message and cleaned up the aircraft. Next; we asked Air Traffic Control for a level off at 5;000 ft. while the First Officer pulled out the QRH to run the Steering Inop message. The QRH directed us to cycle the switch to off; then on. The Steering Inop message came back and directed us to select the longest runway; use rudder; differential braking; and engine thrust as required to assist with directional control. We came to the conclusion as a crew to return back to ZZZ; but we would have to burn approximately less than 1;500 lbs. to get below maximum landing weight. We asked for delayed vectors and a place to hold prior to shooting the approach back into ZZZ. As a crew we then informed the Flight Attendants; passengers; Dispatch; Station Operations and lastly ATC. We had a mainline in the jump seat who gave insightful opinions as he had similar experiences. We came to the conclusion it would be possible we would not have steering outside of free castering; and might not be able to clear the runway. As a result; we requested [priority handling] to ATC out of an abundance of caution and ATC was already treating it as such. We landed Runway XXL and came to a full stop on the runway short of Taxiway W. We attempted to try and cycle the NWS (Nose Wheel Steering) through the QRH directed task once stopped to see if we could clear; but the message returned and the safest course of action was to get a tow instead of attempting multiple turns including 90 degree turns with differential thrust and braking. We canceled the [priority handling] and a tug arrived fairly quickly thereafter and we got towed to the gate without incident.There is a recent pilot manual change about verifying the gear is up through multiple cues prior to calling positive rate. Suggest this also be in the QRH. We would have ran a system reset to see if that would have cleared the issue but it said under the instructions to not impede traffic and the tow tug was already there waiting for us.