Skirt Steak Marinade with Chimichurri Recipe – No grill is complete without my insanely flavorful skirt or flank steak marinade with chimichurri sauce! Easy, absolutely delicious and beyond flavorful!
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The Perks and Highlights for the Best Skirt Steak Marinade
Cuisine Inspiration: Latin American flavors
Primary Cooking Method: Marinating and grilling, baby!
Dietary Info: Gluten-free and absolutely full of protein.
Key Flavor: The dominant flavors are a tantalizing mix of zesty citrus, rich olive oil, salty soy sauce, tangy apple cider vinegar, aromatic garlic, and a splash of umami from the Worcestershire sauce. The chimichurri sauce adds a fresh, herby kick to round everything out.
Skill Level Required: Pretty easy
Sweet Highlights:
- Zesty Citrus Magic: The citrus juices help tenderize the steak, ensuring every bite is mouth-wateringly soft.
- Garlic’s Bold Embrace: Garlic adds a depth of flavor that transforms the marinade from good to “can I bathe in this?”
- Chimichurri Charm: This sauce is the unsung hero of the recipe, adding a fresh, herby layer
- Soy Sauce Savvy: A splash of soy brings all the ingredients together
- Grill Marks for Days: There’s something undeniably magical about the smoky goodness that a grill imparts on steak, making this dish a summertime (or anytime!) favorite.
What is Skirt Steak?
Skirt steak is a long cut of beef that’s sliced thinly from the diaphragm muscles of the cow. It is one of the most flavorful cuts of beef but can be a little on the tougher side because of the connective tissue in the cow’s diaphragm muscles. That’s where marinades come in to help tenderize the meat.
Ingredients
The flavor is unreal. Because of the texture of skirt steak (I love to use it here in my carne asada as well) and flank steak, I wanted to make sure I used a marinade recipe that would really infuse a ton of flavor and also help to tenderize the meat. The texture is very different than this london broil, cube steak or ribeye steak, which is much more tender.
The ingredients contained in this marinade including:
- olive oil
- orange juice
- lime juice
- soy sauce
- Worcestershire sauce
- apple cider or red wine vinegar
- minced garlic
Ingredients like lime juice and soy sauce add acid to really break down the toughness of the steak, and it couldn’t taste better if you ask me. That citrus essence gets right down in each and every bite. Put your completed marinade in a resealable plastic bag and add your steak pieces. Refrigerate and marinate for 6 to 7 hours.
Can You Marinate Too Long?
Optimally, for tough steaks like skirt and flank, it’s best to marinate it no longer than 24 hours in the refrigerator. Beyond overnight marinating is overkill. Also, never re-use a marinade.
How to Cook Skirt Steak
Before placing your marinated skirt or flank steak on the grill, it’s important to liberally season the meat on both sides with salt and pepper. Allow your charcoal or gas grill to get good and hot.
Place your steak on the grill and cook both sides for 4 to 6 minutes. The meat should be perfectly charred with wonderful grill marks and have a golden brown color. Remove from the grill and allow the meat to rest for around 5 minutes.
After grilling your steak and allowing it to rest is the best time to cut it. Take your steak and always cut against the grain in thin slices.
Adding Chimichurri Sauce
Adding my chimichurri sauce, takes this recipe to a whole new level y’all. This chimichurri sauce is so fresh with clean flavors. Cilantro and parsley are already so fresh but when added with fresh lime juice, the essence is just so wonderful. It is a lovely accent to this dish.
You can whip this chimichurri recipe up in your heavy duty blender or food processor. The flavors just come together so perfectly with the steak.
More Grilled Recipes
- This Grilled Ribeye Steak with Tequila Glaze is everything!
- These BBQ Baby Back Ribs are incredible!!!
- Grilled Proscuitto Arugula Pizza is necessary!
- What’s a grill without chicken? This Tequila Lime Chicken is necessary.
- This Carne Asada makes my life every time I grill it!
- And finally get this Grilled Catfish recipe on the grill immediately.
Skirt Steak Marinade Recipe with Chimichurri Recipe
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Ingredients
For the Marinade and Grilling:
- 2/3 cup olive oil
- 1/2 cup fresh orange juice
- 1/3 cup fresh lime juice
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
- 3 tablespoons apple cider or red wine vinegar
- 4 garlic cloves minced
- 1 pound skirt steak
- Salt and pepper to taste
For the Chimichurri Sauce:
- 1 cup fresh parsley
- 1 cup fresh cilantro
- 1/4-1/3 cup olive oil
- 1/2 medium onion diced
- 3 garlic cloves
- 3 tablespoons fresh lime juice
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- Optional: 1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes
Instructions
For the Marinade and Grilling:
- Whisk all of the ingredients together and pour into a large ziploc bag.
- Add skirt steak to ziploc bag with marinade and allow to marinade up to 6-7 hours max depending on how thick the meat is.
- When ready to grill, liberally season with salt and pepper.
- Grill until golden brown and perfectly charred then allow to rest before slicing on a cutting board.
For the Chimichurri:
- Add all of the ingredients to a heavy duty blender or food processor and blend until everything is chopped up and smooth then serve. Seriously that easy.
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Can you make the Chimichurri sauce ahead of time? If so, how long does it keep?
Yep you certainly can. You can store in the fridge for about 5 days.
Any recommendations for what to make with it??
I love this with some creamed or fried corn in the summer time. It is delish!
Can I marinate the meat for longer? Like 24 hours?
You sure can!
This looks incredible, but can it be adapted for those of us without a grill? What are your recommendations for working on a stovetop? Thanks in advance!
It can absolutely be adapted to cook stovetop. You can easily use a cast iron skillet and let it get to high smoking point to get a nice crisp crust then finish in the oven. And I have a lot more tips for searing in this post: https://grandbaby-cakes.com/how-to-pan-sear-a-steak/
This was a big success – first time we made skirt steak/Chimichurri and it was a real crowd pleaser. Marinade is amazing.
Woot! Thanks so much, doll!
Excellent! Very tender! The flavor profile is unmatched.
Hooray I am so glad you enjoyed this.
This recipe is spot on. I would only add if you have your grill on high flame (400 or higher) try 3 minutes each side. Definitely let it rest. Marinade is amazing though so is the chimichurri. Thank you for a fantastic recipe. Was very good.
You’re so welcome, great tip!
Hi there, how big of a piece of beef does this marinate? No where in the recipe does is say how big of a piece of skirt steak?
Hi Janet, in the recipe card under the ingredients you can find it listed. The recipe as is works for 1-1.5lbs of skirt steak. You’ll have to let me know what you think of it after you make it!
Love the flavor of the marinade for the steak!! Best flavor ever! I make this all the time. Chimchuri is great flavor too!
Thanks so much!!