Carne Asada (Easy Marinade)
This marinade makes cheap flank steak taste like a $50 restaurant plate. I’m serious. Flank steak is one of the most affordable cuts at the grocery store — tough, lean, and overlooked by everyone reaching for ribeyes and filets. But give it a proper marinade, cook it screaming hot, and slice it against the grain, and it transforms into something tender, flavourful, and deeply satisfying. Carne asada is the Mexican tradition of grilling marinated beef, and it’s the recipe that taught me cheap cuts aren’t inferior cuts — they’re just cuts that need more love.
Ingredients
For the Marinade
- 2 pounds flank steak or skirt steak
- Juice of 3 limes
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 jalapeno, minced
- 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
- 2 teaspoons cumin
- 1 teaspoon chilli powder
- 1 teaspoon smoked paprika the Polish Mom signature
- Salt and pepper
Method
Marinate
-
Combine all marinade ingredients. Pour over the steak in a bag or dish. Refrigerate 2-8 hours. The acid from the lime juice breaks down tough fibres and infuses flavour deep into the meat. Two hours is minimum. Eight hours is ideal. Overnight works too but don’t go past 12 hours — too much acid starts to “cook” the surface and turns it mushy.
Cook
-
Remove steak from marinade and pat dry. Season with extra salt. Heat your grill, cast iron skillet, or broiler to the highest possible heat. Cook 4-5 minutes per side for medium-rare (130F / 54C internal). The key is aggressive heat — you want a deep char on the outside while the inside stays pink and juicy. Don’t touch it while it cooks. Flipping constantly prevents crust formation. Place it, walk away, flip once, walk away again.
Rest and Slice
-
Rest 10 minutes on a cutting board. This is non-negotiable — cutting immediately releases all the juices onto the board instead of keeping them in the meat. After resting, slice AGAINST the grain into thin strips. The grain in flank steak is visible — long muscle fibres running in one direction. Cutting against (perpendicular to) those fibres shortens them, making each bite tender instead of chewy. This one technique is the difference between great carne asada and disappointing carne asada.
Carne Asada — Easy Citrus-Garlic Marinade
This marinade makes cheap flank steak taste like a $50 restaurant plate. I’m serious. Flank steak is one of the most affordable cuts at the grocery store — tough, lean, and overlooked by everyone reaching for ribeyes and filets. But give it a proper marinade, cook it screaming hot, and slice it against the grain, and it transforms into something tender, flavourful, and deeply satisfying. Carne asada is the Mexican tradition of grilling marinated beef, and it’s the recipe that taught me cheap cuts aren’t inferior cuts — they’re just cuts that need more love.
My babcia understood this instinctively. She never bought expensive cuts. She bought what was affordable and made it extraordinary through technique and patience. Polish cooking is built on this philosophy — tough pork becomes schabowy through pounding and breading, cheap beef becomes bigos through slow braising. Mexican carne asada does the same thing: transforms an affordable cut through a flavour-packed marinade and aggressive heat. Budget cooking isn’t compromise cooking. It’s creative cooking.
Ingredients
For the Marinade
- • 2 pounds flank steak or skirt steak
- • Juice of 3 limes
- • 1/4 cup olive oil
- • 4 cloves garlic, minced
- • 1 jalapeno, minced
- • 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, chopped
- • 2 teaspoons cumin
- • 1 teaspoon chilli powder
- • 1 teaspoon smoked paprika (the Polish Mom signature)
- • Salt and pepper
How to Make It
Marinate
Combine all marinade ingredients. Pour over the steak in a bag or dish. Refrigerate 2-8 hours. The acid from the lime juice breaks down tough fibres and infuses flavour deep into the meat. Two hours is minimum. Eight hours is ideal. Overnight works too but don’t go past 12 hours — too much acid starts to “cook” the surface and turns it mushy.
Cook
Remove steak from marinade and pat dry. Season with extra salt. Heat your grill, cast iron skillet, or broiler to the highest possible heat. Cook 4-5 minutes per side for medium-rare (130F / 54C internal). The key is aggressive heat — you want a deep char on the outside while the inside stays pink and juicy. Don’t touch it while it cooks. Flipping constantly prevents crust formation. Place it, walk away, flip once, walk away again.
Rest and Slice
Rest 10 minutes on a cutting board. This is non-negotiable — cutting immediately releases all the juices onto the board instead of keeping them in the meat. After resting, slice AGAINST the grain into thin strips. The grain in flank steak is visible — long muscle fibres running in one direction. Cutting against (perpendicular to) those fibres shortens them, making each bite tender instead of chewy. This one technique is the difference between great carne asada and disappointing carne asada.
Serving
• Tacos: In warm corn tortillas with diced onion, cilantro, salsa verde, and lime
• Burrito bowls: Over cilantro-lime rice with beans, elote salad, guacamole
• Fries: Over loaded fries with cheese sauce and jalapenos
• With kopytka: Because Polish potato dumplings with carne asada, sour cream, and salsa verde is the kind of fusion this blog was built for
Tips
💡 Pro Tips
✓ Flank or skirt steak. Both are thin, flavourful, and take marinades well. Skirt steak is slightly more tender, flank is leaner.
✓ Pat dry before cooking. Wet meat steams. Dry meat sears. The marinade did its job — now let the heat do its job.
✓ Slice against the grain. This is the #1 most important carne asada technique. Wrong direction = chewy. Right direction = tender.
✓ Highest heat possible. Hot grill, hot cast iron, hot broiler. Carne asada needs aggressive heat for the char that defines the dish.
How to Store
Sliced carne asada keeps 4 days in the fridge. Reheat in a hot skillet to re-char slightly. Excellent for meal prep — cook on Sunday, eat tacos and bowls all week. Freezes well for 3 months.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I use a different cut?
Sirloin or tri-tip work but are thicker and need longer cooking. The thin profile of flank/skirt steak is what allows the marinade to penetrate fully and the heat to char the outside while keeping the inside pink. Thin cuts are carne asada’s best friend.
What if I don’t have a grill?
Cast iron skillet over the highest burner setting, or the oven broiler 6 inches from the element. Both produce excellent results. I make carne asada year-round using my cast iron — Chicago winters don’t stop Polish Mom from grilling (indoors).
Taco Night Architecture
Carne asada is the foundation of what I call “taco night architecture” — one protein that serves multiple meals across the week. Sunday: grill the steak. Sunday dinner: tacos with all the fixings. Monday lunch: burrito bowls with leftover meat over cilantro-lime rice. Tuesday dinner: carne asada quesadillas with Oaxaca cheese. Wednesday: chopped into a salad with elote dressing. This is the same batch-cooking philosophy my babcia used — she’d roast a chicken on Sunday and it would become soup on Tuesday, sandwiches on Wednesday, and croquettes on Thursday. One ingredient, four transformations. My babcia did it with chicken in rural Poland. I do it with flank steak in suburban Chicago. The strategy is timeless. The cuisine changes. The efficiency doesn’t.
Is carne asada the same as steak?
Carne asada literally means “grilled meat” in Spanish. It refers specifically to thinly sliced, marinated, grilled beef — typically flank or skirt steak. It’s not just “steak” the way Americans think of it (thick, unmarinated, served with a baked potato). The marinade and the thin cut are what define it. Think of it as the Mexican answer to the question “how do we make affordable beef taste extraordinary?” — a question that every cuisine answers differently but with equal brilliance.
Variations
• Al pastor style: Add achiote paste, pineapple juice, and diced pineapple to the marinade. Grill with pineapple chunks for a sweet-spicy twist.
• Chimichurri carne asada: Skip the lime-cilantro marinade and use chimichurri (parsley, garlic, olive oil, red wine vinegar) instead. Argentine-Mexican fusion that works beautifully.
• Carne asada fries: Top French fries with sliced carne asada, nacho cheese, guacamole, and sour cream. This is not health food. This is Friday night food. There’s a difference and I honour both.
More From Polish Mom
Birria Tacos (Slow Cooker) · Mexican Street Corn Salad (Elote) · Chicken Enchiladas (Creamy Green Chile) · Chicken Tortilla Soup