All About Flank Steak - Meat Recipes and Cooking Info (2024)

FAQs

All About Flank Steak - Meat Recipes and Cooking Info? ›

For the perfect medium-rare Flank steak (recommended) broil in the oven for 11–14 minutes, turning about 1 minute before the halfway point. A meat thermometer should read 130°F. After removing from the oven, rest your Flank steak for 5 minutes before serving, covering lightly with foil.

Flank steaks are great cooked on a hot grill, which often makes for a nice outer crust. This Grilled Flank Steak with Mozzarella and Basil gets pounded with a meat mallet, seasoned simply, cooked on a medium high grill for four minutes a side and paired with a simple summer salad.

These steaks do best when cooking over high heat for a short period of time to give them the perfect texture and taste. Spray the pan with some cooking spray or add olive oil and cook on each side for about four minutes each. The optimal temperature is, again, a medium rare so your meat doesn't end up too chewy.

If you're looking for a tender and flavorful way to cook flank steak, consider slow cooking. Slow cooking allows the meat to break down and become melt-in-your-mouth tender while infusing it with rich flavors.

The best way to cook flank steak is to tenderize it with a mallet, marinate it first for at least 8–12 hours, then sear it on both sides and bake/broil it until it reaches 125–130 degrees, then let it rest and slice it thinly against the grain.

Acids like balsamic vinegar and lemon juice or lime juice are commonly used to tenderize flank steak, but a lesser-known tenderizer is soy sauce. Like acid, soy sauce will break down the proteins just enough to make for a tender steak. This flank steak marinade is made with low-sodium soy sauce.

The flank steak is taken from below the loin of the cow. Since it is very lean, the lack of fat may make it tougher than other cuts. Thus, this steak is best used in dishes like stews or fajitas because it can soak up the marinades well, ensuring that flavour gets injected into the meat.

The critical reason for this is that flank steak, although lean and tasty, is tougher than other cuts of beef due to the many long, thin fibers running through it. To help tenderize flank steak, it is often marinated and cooked by grilling, stir-frying, broiling, or smoking.

The muscle fibers in flank steak all run in a single direction, so this cut of beef is ideal for tenderizing with a marinade and grilling over high heat. I like to marinate to help tenderize and flavor the steak and then sear over scorching high-heat until medium rare.

Experts recommend marinating from the night before or very early in the morning, leaving it to rest in the fridge and covering the marinade with clingfilm. Also, keep in mind that cutting the flank steak into steaks should be done before marinating.

How long should a flank steak be cooked on each side? ›

Flank steak is a relatively thin cut, but depending on the thickness of your piece, it should take 3 to 5 minutes per side over a very hot grill (around 400˚ to 450˚) or in a grill pan over medium-high heat.

What's the Difference Between Skirt and Flank Steak? While they're both from the group known as “flat steaks” and have deep, beefy flavor, there are a few differences; namely, skirt steak is longer, thinner and richer in flavor than flank steak. Shape: Skirt steak is a much longer, narrower and thinner cut.

Because flank steak is quite lean, it can be a bit tough if not prepared and sliced properly. Marinating with a little acid, like lemon juice or vinegar, will help tenderize this cut of beef. Cooking until medium-rare and slicing against the grain are key to a tender result.

Flank steak is on the thinner side, so it doesn't take much time to cook. For medium-rare flank steak cooked under the broiler, it takes about 8-12 minutes, depending on the steak's thickness. If you like your steak cooked to medium or medium-well, use the oven instead of the broiler.

Flank steak is generally one of the most affordable cuts of beef you can find. Yet it tends to come at a slightly higher price than the Skirt steak. This is largely because the Skirt cut is a little more tender, and therefore easier to cook with different methods.

Skirt steak is a good choice for grilling or barbecue. Flank steak should be cut into thin slices before cooking, making it a poor choice for the grill. Skirt steak benefits from marinade which can help to tenderize the steak.

We either run a tenderizer over the steak or cross-score the steak before we marinate it. Both the process of tenderizing or cross-scoring and the ingredients in the marinate break down the muscle that can make a flank steak chewy. I do the same thing when I'm using a flank steak for fajitas.