Make Our Highly Rated Flank Steak Recipe Your Answer to "What's For Dinner?" (2024)

FAQs

What is the best method to cook flank steak? ›

Grilling is perhaps the best way to cook Flank steak, but you can also pan-sear it in a skillet, broil it in your oven, or even use a specialty cooking method like an instant pot. The real trick is to keep your Flank steak grill time to a minimum.

How many people does a flank steak serve? A flank steak can weigh about 1.5 – 2 lbs and will vary in weight depending on the size of the hind quarter. At the recommended ½ pound per person, a 2 lb flank steak can feed 4 people.

Flank steaks love a good marinade. Just a couple hours in the marinade is all it takes to tenderize them and infuse them with plenty of flavor. (Marinating them past six to eight hours could cause the meat to end up with a grainy mouthfeel.)

As you'd expect from that muscle-y area, the meat can be somewhat chewier than other steaks. But, when cooked correctly, it's not tough. It remains tender. And, because the area from which it's cut gets a lot of blood flow, you get some amazing beef flavor that's incomparable to other cuts.

No matter the cooking method, with or without a marinade, you should always cut flank steak across the grain for the most delicious results. Slicing flank steak this way cuts through those tough fibers, shortening them to get an easier-to-chew, more tender bite of beef.

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.

As a lean cut and excellent protein source, flank steak is a great choice for health-conscious people or those who strictly adhere to a low-fat diet. In this brief nutrition summary, we'll take a closer look at the nutritional content of this cut of meat so you can see how it can benefit your health.

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.

Which is more tender, flank or skirt steak? ›

Flank is more tender than the inside skirt. The outside skirt is more evenly matched and may be more tender than a flank. Keep this in mind if tenderness is important to you. You can tenderize these cuts with a mallet or by marinating them in olive oil and citrus juice overnight.

Score the Meat.

Even a full day of marinating will only allow the marinade to soak a few millimeters into the surface of the steak. Scoring it before marinating it will help all those flavors penetrate better.

Because flank steak is relatively thin, it's best to cook it over fairly high heat so that it can develop a flavorful crust on the outside before it's overcooked on the inside. This means a flank steak will do best with quick, high-heat cooking methods like grilling, broiling, and pan-searing.

The best side dishes to serve with flank steak are mashed potatoes, corn on the cob, tomato soup, cauliflower rice, aloo gobi, steamed vegetables, beef and broccoli, gluten-free pasta, carrot mash, pumpkin soup, curried rice, tahini roasted broccoli, green salad, grilled onions, cherry tomato gratin, zesty grilled ...

Whether you know it by its proper name or have seen it referred to as “London broil” at the grocery store or in certain restaurants, the lean flank steak delivers a strong beefy flavor and, when prepared and sliced properly, an unforgettable texture that sets it apart from other cuts.

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.

Because flank steak is lean, it can become dry and chewy if overcooked. So go for rare to medium-rare, medium at most. But don't worry if you like your steak more well-done. Flank steak isn't of an even thickness with the ends being quite a bit thinner than the middle.

You'll want to cut the flank steak in advance for recipes like steak stir fry, steak fajitas, or other dishes that require cooking sliced steak. If you have time, place the raw flank steak in the freezer for 30 minutes to chill slightly. This helps hold it together as you slice.