Every cook needs an easy carne asada recipe in their back pocket. Pile into tortillas with your favorite salsa or fold into a carne asada burrito.
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00:00 Hey everybody, it's Brooke.
00:01 I'm in the Delish Test Kitchen, and I'm making carne asada.
00:05 Carne asada is an undisputedly delicious,
00:07 classic Mexican preparation for steak
00:10 that looks just as beautiful as it tastes.
00:12 Translating to grilled meat, carne asada is when you take
00:15 a nice tender piece of steak,
00:17 and then marinate it in a really citrusy, herby marinade.
00:20 Let it sit overnight, if you have the time,
00:23 and then it gets grilled until you get
00:24 that nice charred exterior and a nice juicy inside.
00:27 We got everything you need to know
00:28 about how to make good carne asada,
00:30 how to make a good marinade,
00:31 how to get those lovely char marks on the outside,
00:34 and what to do when you're tired of eating tacos.
00:37 That's right, this goes way beyond Taco Tuesday.
00:40 Let's go.
00:41 I'm using skirt steak for my carne asada,
00:43 which I love the name of because it really does
00:46 kinda look like a skirt if you wrap it all the way around.
00:50 If you don't have skirt steak at your local butcher
00:51 or your grocery store, you can also opt for flank steak.
00:55 They have a similar level of fattiness and tenderness.
00:58 That's the perfect mix for carne asada.
00:59 When you have a skirt steak like this,
01:01 you'll see a lot of little fatty pockets on it.
01:03 For the most part, you wanna keep that fat intact,
01:06 but every now and then, you'll get little bits,
01:08 like this one, that kinda just fall right off.
01:11 So when you get those bits, just pluck 'em off.
01:14 They shouldn't really require any effort to move.
01:15 You don't want those to fall in the grill and get stuck.
01:19 That's not gonna be fun.
01:20 This one was actually pretty clean,
01:21 but I did find some of the bits,
01:23 and remember, you're just doing that
01:24 so those pieces don't get stuck to the grill
01:27 and make your house or your backyard smokier than necessary.
01:30 My rule of thumb for cutting skirt steak
01:32 is to try to fold it into thirds.
01:34 It'll usually come somewhat folded in the package,
01:36 but I like to take it back out
01:38 and fold it into thirds like this,
01:40 and then I'll just cut it each fold,
01:42 and that's a perfect length for marinating
01:44 to put it in the bag,
01:45 and then also so it fits on your grill in a reasonable way.
01:48 This portion altogether was about a pound,
01:50 and this recipe makes two pounds total,
01:52 so I have another little bit that I trimmed up
01:55 and put in this bag,
01:56 and I'm gonna put the rest of it in this bag.
01:59 This is my favorite way to marinate
02:01 any large piece of meat,
02:03 or any small piece of meat, honestly.
02:05 It's super easy cleanup,
02:06 and I can press all the air out
02:08 so the marinade doesn't get gross as fast as it would
02:10 if I just had it in a regular container
02:12 with some plastic wrap over it.
02:14 It's time to get poppin' with the marinade.
02:16 Like I said, it's super easy, citrusy, herby,
02:19 absolutely delicious.
02:21 The best part about this marinade,
02:22 and honestly, any good marinade, in my opinion,
02:25 is that it's all made in a blender.
02:26 You don't have to spend time doing a whole lot
02:28 of extra chopping, dicing, or cooking.
02:30 Just throw everything into the blender,
02:32 and let the blender do the work for you.
02:34 Into the blender, we're going to start with
02:35 a cup of cilantro leaves and stems,
02:38 one chipotle chili and adobo,
02:40 plus a little bit of the adobo sauce,
02:42 two scallions, three cloves of garlic,
02:45 the zest and juice from two limes,
02:48 the zest and juice from one navel orange,
02:51 (upbeat music)
02:53 a little bit of neutral oil, some Worcestershire sauce,
03:03 some cumin, some salt, and some freshly ground black pepper.
03:07 If you don't have the world's strongest blender,
03:11 give your cilantro a little bit of a rough chop,
03:13 just two or three times,
03:15 and also give your scallions a rough chop,
03:17 just so everything blends smoothly.
03:19 The more traditional choice for a carne asada marinade
03:22 is actually to use a sour orange,
03:24 also called a Seville orange.
03:26 But what I've found is that Seville oranges
03:28 are very hard to find.
03:30 Depends on where you live,
03:30 it depends on what your grocery store stocks.
03:33 I couldn't find them, so what I've found
03:35 is that a great replacement is navel oranges
03:38 plus a little bit of lime juice.
03:40 This is the texture that you're looking for.
03:46 It's mostly smooth, but it's okay
03:47 if you can still see some green bits and speckles
03:49 from the blended up cilantro and scallion.
03:52 Also, if your blender is not quite as powerful,
03:56 make sure you have a rubber spatula handy
03:57 to help push down the sides and scrape,
04:00 and make sure you got everything all nice and blended up.
04:03 Also, look at how much marinade is left in the cap.
04:06 Don't leave that in there.
04:07 I definitely want all that on my steak,
04:10 so I'm going to scrape all that out,
04:11 and I think you should too.
04:13 And the steak's already in the bag, ready to go,
04:15 so all we have to do is pour the marinade in
04:17 and let it sit in the fridge.
04:19 I like to do it for at least two hours.
04:21 Overnight is really what's best,
04:23 but do what you have time for.
04:24 It's still going to have more flavor than it did before.
04:27 I just tasted some of this before I put it in the steak,
04:29 and it's so spicy, but don't be intimidated by that.
04:32 The marinade has a little bit of kick,
04:34 but it won't make the meat unbearably spicy.
04:37 Just trust me on this.
04:38 After you get the marinade into the bag with all the meat,
04:41 you're gonna wanna make sure you have a really tight seal.
04:44 Leave about an inch at the end,
04:46 and press out any extra air.
04:49 Getting that really tight seal is going to prevent
04:53 the marinade from oxidizing so quickly.
04:55 Take a second and just massage the marinade in
04:57 so it gets all in the nooks and crannies
04:59 and grains of the beef.
05:01 Through the power of movie magic,
05:02 we have some carne asada that's been marinating
05:04 for four hours already,
05:06 so I'm gonna get started with grilling that right now.
05:09 The first thing I wanna do when I get it out of the bag,
05:11 I don't want all of that marinade to go on the grill,
05:14 so I'm gonna scrape off the majority of it,
05:17 pat it dry with a paper towel,
05:18 hit all of my pieces on all sides with some salt
05:21 and some fresh pepper,
05:23 and then I'm going to get 'em onto my grill grates.
05:26 Before you get the steak onto the grill,
05:28 you wanna make sure your grill is prepped and ready to go.
05:31 So what that's gonna mean is getting the grill
05:33 up to a nice medium-high heat.
05:35 Then you're going to take a paper towel,
05:37 dip it in a little bit of canola oil,
05:39 and rub those grill grates so they get nice and coated.
05:42 That will help minimize the steak
05:44 sticking to the grill grates.
05:45 The grill is smoking a little bit,
05:47 which means that it's nice and hot,
05:49 and it's gonna give our meat a great char on the outside.
05:52 Now, I'm gonna talk a little bit
05:53 about getting grill marks on your meat.
05:56 They're not always the most necessary thing in the world,
05:58 but if you want that really beautiful presentation,
06:00 it's super simple.
06:02 Just put the meat at a 45-degree angle on the grill grates,
06:06 let it cook for two minutes or so,
06:08 and then you're going to rotate the meat 90 degrees.
06:11 You can rotate it clockwise,
06:12 you can rotate it counterclockwise,
06:14 whichever one is better for your grill space.
06:17 After you've let that cook for another two minutes or so,
06:20 you're gonna flip the meat over to cook on the other side,
06:22 and you'll be able to see
06:23 that beautiful diamond crosshatch pattern
06:26 on the surface of your carne.
06:27 If you don't really care about getting
06:30 those beautiful diamond-pattern crosshatch marks
06:33 on your meat, kinda like me,
06:35 the way you can do is move the meat around
06:37 a little bit more so that you can evenly distribute
06:40 some of that char.
06:41 I find that with those crosshatch marks,
06:43 you only get char in the parts
06:45 that are coming into contact with the grill,
06:47 and I like to spread the love around a little bit.
06:49 In terms of doneness, what you're looking for
06:51 is a good medium, medium-rare,
06:53 which means that the internal temperature
06:54 will be 125 degrees.
06:57 For the most important part, it's resting the meat.
06:59 After you grill the meat,
07:01 let it hang out on a cutting board
07:02 for about 10 minutes or so before you slice into it
07:05 so that you don't lose all those juices
07:07 to your cutting board.
07:08 You want them to stay in place.
07:10 All of the muscle fibers are running in the same direction,
07:12 so instead of cutting along those muscle fibers,
07:15 you wanna cut across them
07:16 so that they're much easier to chew.
07:18 If that didn't make any sense, don't worry.
07:20 I'm gonna show you exactly what that looks like.
07:22 This piece of meat has really obvious muscle fibers
07:24 that are all running in this direction
07:27 that I'm pointing in,
07:28 so what we're gonna do with the knife
07:30 is cut across those muscle fibers
07:32 so they're nice and short and tender.
07:34 If you find that the portions you've cut the meat into
07:38 are still a little bit long for you
07:39 to get your knife through comfortably,
07:41 just cut them in half,
07:42 and then you can continue cutting against the grain.
07:45 Now, this is my kind of recipe
07:47 because there was minimal effort required,
07:49 minimal time on the grill, but maximum flavor.
07:54 And it's really cute, I think.
07:55 This is so close to being perfect.
07:58 I know what it needs.
07:59 Just the tiniest squeeze of lime.
08:01 Mm-hmm.
08:07 It's smoky, it's citrusy, it's tender,
08:09 and that little bit of time on the grill
08:11 at that high temperature
08:13 gave it the perfect amount of char
08:14 while the middle is still a juicy medium rare.
08:17 I really hope this carne asada recipe
08:19 looks as easy as I think it actually is,
08:22 and I hope you go try it out.
08:23 But remember, this is not just for Taco Tuesday.
08:25 Make it on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday,
08:28 whatever day of the week your heart desires,
08:30 and you won't be disappointed.
08:31 For more recipes just like this one,
08:33 keep it right here at delish.com.
08:35 (upbeat music)
08:37 (upbeat music)