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!
This post may contain affiliate links. Read our disclosure policy.
Want to Save This Recipe, Boo?
I'll email this recipe to you, so you can come back to it later!
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
Want to Save This Recipe, Boo?
I’ll email this recipe to you, so you can come back to it later!
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.
pinterest 
facebook 
twitter 
email
OMG this is AMAZING!!!! After reading the comments about there being too much marinade, I doubled the meat and didn’t double the marinade. It was perfect!!! I also made the sweet potato fries. We also made coconut rice and beans, and made a bowl with the meat, rice, sweet potatoes, and sauce. SO YUMMY!!!! We will be making this again very soon!
This is a ridiculous amount of marinade for 1 lb. I made the mistake of doubling it for my 2 pounds of skirt steak, way too much marinade!~
Very yummy! I made it with an outside skirt steak which is much more tender than an inside (but hard to find)..
Now, what to do with leftover chimichurri…
SOOOOO GOOOD!
I typically have 1.5-2lbs and adjust accordingly. Then I marinate for at least 8 hours. Every time I make this someone asks me for the recipe. Thank you!!!!
I made this recipe and it was amazing!
I used a skirt steak that I bought from target, so I wasn’t sure if it was inner or outer skirt. I found some areas to be a bit rough chewy and others melted in my mouth.
I cooked this in a preheated cast iron skillet, about 5 minutes on each side then I threw it in the oven for 10 minutes. The meat held a lot of liquid and I didn’t want it to boil in the skillet so I made sure to take the excess liquid by pouring it out. It was still a little red in the inside, cooked to my liking!
My only issue was the marinade – it made so much for 1.3lbs of skirt steak and I didn’t know what to do with the rest! I ended up throwing it away ♀️.
The Chimichurri sauce was delicious on top of the skirt steak, and this is actually my favorite sauce to eat on top of skirt steak.
I would certainly make this again!! I just don’t like how much marinade went to waste after… would you recommend halving the marinade recipe for 1# of meat?
Woooow…..I think I will look for these and try your recipe this weekend. Thank you for sharing!
Dang Thai from Embeya !
Hands down the best steak recipe I’ve made. Just the marinated steak was amazing and could be served as is. The Chimichurri sauce took it to mind blowing. Used a thinly cut flank steak, cooked on grill pan. Thank you!!
I have tried other chimichurri recipe’s and always feel like it’s not what I was hoping for in flavor and is always off by something, however, I love your Chimichurri recipe! Just what I was looking for. Thank you!
Thank you so much
I love skirt steak and your chimichurri sauce looks like the perfect addition!
I have made this with flank steak as well as skirt steak. It is a family favorite, but I prefer the flank steak as it isn’t as chewy. My husband is allergic to garlic, so I make some without garlic as well as the chimichurri sauce without garlic. It tastes great minus the garlic for anyone else who has this allergy.