Skirt Steak Marinade with Chimichurri Recipe

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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Overhead shot of a skirt steak topped with chimichurri sauce after being marinated with a flank steak marinade surrounded by cilantro.

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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:

  1. olive oil
  2. orange juice
  3. lime juice
  4. soy sauce
  1. Worcestershire sauce
  2. apple cider or red wine vinegar
  3. 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.

Thinly sliced pieces of skirt steak topped with chimichurri sauce.

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.

Close up of thinly sliced skirt steak topped with chimichurri sauce

More Grilled Recipes

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Marinated Skirt Steak sliced with Chimichurri spread on top of the steak

Skirt Steak Marinade Recipe with Chimichurri Recipe

Skirt Steak Marinade with Chimichurri Recipe – No summer grill is complete without my skirt or flank steak marinade with chimichurri sauce!  Easy, absolutely delicious and beyond flavorful!
4.46 from 397 votes
Prep Time 6 hours
Cook Time 10 minutes
Total Time 6 hours 10 minutes
Course: Main Course
Servings: 4 servings

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.

Notes

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.

Nutrition

Calories: 678kcal | Carbohydrates: 14g | Protein: 27g | Fat: 58g | Saturated Fat: 10g | Cholesterol: 71mg | Sodium: 1359mg | Potassium: 743mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 5g | Vitamin A: 1610IU | Vitamin C: 50.8mg | Calcium: 70mg | Iron: 4.7mg
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Filed Under:  Beef and Lamb, Dinner, Father's Day, Grilling, Main Dishes, Summer Recipes

Comments

  1. I made this recipe using a flank steak since that is what I already had on hand and it was fabulous!! My family absolutely loved it. I see us making this often in the future!!

  2. I rarely follow a recipe step by step, but as I wasn’t familiar with cooking with this type of steak or making chimichurri sauce, I decided to follow these to the letter and I am SO GLAD I did. This is one of the best recipes I’ve ever come across. The husband was happy, the dog was happy (with a bite or two of steak only) and we will definitely make this again and again.

  3. Meat was absolutely wonderful, remember not to overcook which is easy to do. As for the chimichurri, I cut the ingredients in half. Still was plenty and even my picky family enjoyed it. I will make again.

  4. I just made this skirt steak in my iron frying pan and it was delicious I surely will make it again Thank you

  5. Chimichuri sauce was great, but the marinade was bit too overpowering for skirt steak imo. Next time I’m going to add less lime/vinegar and marinade it 20 min max and see how that goes.

  6. This was outstanding! I had very low expectations because, well, skirt steak has a reputation. I marinated it for two hours. For those wondering, I cooked it in a smoking hot cast iron for a few minutes on each side (temp to 135-140) then I tented it with foil and let it rest for 10 minutes). It came out medium- medium rare with a nice char on the outside. The steak was tender and juicy and the leftovers were the perfect protein addition to my salad the following day. I didn’t add salt because of the soy sauce in the marinade. I will make this again and again. Thank you!

    One regrettable thing is that there was so much leftover marinade. I felt wasteful not having another use for it.

4.46 from 397 votes (276 ratings without comment)

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