Our Best-Ever Carne Asada Doesn't Overcomplicate Things—The Opposite Actually

Delish

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.

Transcript

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)

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