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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I just made this for dinner. It was amazing! I’m already planning when I can do it again. Thanks!
Hi.my steak was about 2 feet long so after letting it marinate for 2 days I rolled it up and tied it. Cooked on the grill till inside temp was 100. Turned out great. The chimmichura sauce really added some zing!
First, your smile brightens my day even over the internet! We made this steak recipe last night for our family and our teens friends. LOVE this recipe. My girls said “we need to have this again”. I forgot to take a photo though. I’ll take one next time. Thank you for sharing your passion.
I’m so so glad you enjoyed it! And wow thank you so so much for this sweet compliment. It brigtened my day!
What if I don’t have OJ? Can I just add in more lime juice to the marinade? Can’t wait to try this out!
Yes you can totally do that! Honestly so many people don’t have everything on hand so adapt adapt adapt!!
I made it without Worcestershire Sauce because I didn’t have that in the house and it came out delicious.
I just made my first ever skirt steak tonight and the flavor was excellent. I cut the oil in half and used apple cider vinegar in the marinade. Didn’t have time for the sauce but the steak really didn’t need it. My finicky daughters loved it. Definitely a new favorite in our house! Thank you.
Notes
– I didn’t have a grill and used a frying pan for the steak fried each side on high heat with vegetable oil for 2 mins
– once the steak was off the heat put a slice of butter and let it melt
– reading the comments reduced my portions to 3/4 cup for everything that had a cup measurement
– also added handful of fresh oregano
– used apple cider vinegar because I didn’t want to buy another vinegar
Still the best sauce ever…
Awesome recipe. Used flat iron steak because it was on sale and it came out perfect. Skirt steak in NJ is crazy expensive these days, sometimes more than ribeye or strip steaks! Anyway, I only had about 3 hours to let it marinade and it still added so much flavor to the steak. Also added some chopped serrano pepper to the chimichurri. Thanks!!!
I feel like an idiot, is this asking for apple cider? Or apple cider vinegar?
Apple cider vinegar. And not a stupid question at all.
I am totally in love with this recipe! Thank you so much for sharing your work. I feel blessed to have found you!
This was an AMAZING recipe, the taste was phenomenal! Assembled the marinade as directed for two 1.5lb. Flank steaks, marinated both for 9 hours in the fridge. Pulled both steaks from fridge about an hour and half prior to cooking on a grill, let them come to room temp. Placed over HOT coals for approximately 5min per side and came out a perfect medium rare. Let both steaks rest about ten minutes prior to thinly slicing and served with chimichurri sauce, roasted yellow peppers, poblano peppers and onions in a wrap. AMAZING and reccomend this marinade!