Carne Asada for Tacos, Burritos, Salads and More!
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Our Delicious and easy carne asada recipe can be grilled outside or cooked on the stove top for carne asada tacos or burritos. The flavors are perfect for Cinco de Mayo celebrations!
What is Carne Asada?
Carne asada is a fantastic grilled beef dish that will rock your world. Traditionally it’s served in Latin America and Mexico, but most popular in Mexico. The beef is usually thin skirt steak or a flank steak. The seasonings are flavorful and the meat is grilled to perfection.
Easy Carne Asada Recipe
This Carne Asada recipe is a Latin American grilled beef dish that’s usually sliced and served in tacos, burritos or salads. We absolutely love Mexican carne asada on tacos and when we’re out looking for street tacos to eat, carne asada is on the top of our list. This carne asada recipe has a fantastic and flavorful marinade that produces a juicy, tender and delicious cut of beef that everyone loves. It’s not intimidating at all to make carne asada because it’s super easy to make. This is an absolutely delicious carne asada recipe that can be made on the grill or on the stove top!
Watch Video for this delicious Carne Asada Recipe:
Best Beef for Carne Asada?
- We love skirt, flap or flank steak because not only is it an inexpensive cut of beef, it’s super tender when sliced thin.
- Of course, you can use other cuts of steak too if you want like rib eye, new york steak or thin london broil steaks. Jus make sure to slice the meat thin for the tacos.
- Our marinade is flavorful and it’s best to marinate the beef for a few hours to let all the great flavors from the garlic and spices soak into the meat.
- You can marinate the whole steaks (easier for grilling) or pre-slice them and marinated the slices (easier to cook in a skillet). Don’t forget to grill this carne asada recipe it to a nice caramelized char! Cook it hot, cook it quick! That adds to the great flavor and each bite will wow everyone in your party. But hey, just don’t limit yourself to beer when you’re eating carne asada.
- We love serving carne asada tacos with drinks but especially margaritas. Our homemade Margarita recipes are awesome too! Like kiwi margaritas that’s blended, inside-a-watermelon margaritas, frozen peach margaritas, party pitcher pineapple margaritas and margarita boozy pops are great with a carne asada feast.
- Enjoy! More Beef Recipes and More Appetizer Party Recipes.
Grilled Beef Carne Asada
Ingredients
- 1 pound (455 g) Beef Flank Flap or Skirt Steak, or other preferred steak (whole or pre-sliced 1/2-inch thick)
- 1/4 cup (60 ml) Vegetable Oil
- 1/2 small Onion , diced
- 1/4 cup (60 ml) chopped Cilantro
- 3 cloves Garlic , minced
- 1 Tablespoon (15 ml) White Vinegar
- 1 Tablespoon (15 ml) fresh Lime Juice
- 1 Tablespoon (15 ml) Worcestershire sauce
- 1 teaspoon (5 ml) Sugar
- 1 teaspoon (5 ml) Kosher Salt or Sea Salt , or to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) ground Cumin
- 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) Paprika
- 1/2 teaspoon (2.5 ml) Chili Powder
- fresh cracked Black Pepper , to taste
Instructions
- Combine all marinade ingredients in a large bowl (1/4 cup oil, onion, cilantro, garlic, 1 Tablespoon vinegar, 1 Tablespoon lime juice, 1 Tablespoon Worcestershire sauce, 1 teaspoon sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/2 teaspoon cumin, 1/2 teaspoon paprika, 1/2 teaspoon chili powder, and pepper).
- Add steak to the marinade, turning the beef to make sure it is completely coated. Marinate for at least 1 hour or up to overnight.
- If cooking on a grill, pre-heat the grill on medium-high to high (depending on your grill’s heat). Make sure to scrape the grill clean and smooth, it will help reduce chances of the meat sticking to the grill when cooking.
- Remove the steak from the marinade and cook over medium-high heat for about 3-4 minutes on each side or until your preferred doneness (if you are comfortable cooking on high heat, go for it since it does helps create a nice char-just be careful, the beef can cook a bit too quickly if you aren't on top of it!). The beef can be cooked in a skillet or on the grill – a skillet may be preferable if using slices rather than the whole steaks.
- After cooking, allow meat to rest for about 5 minutes. If using whole steaks, slice 1/2-inch thick and serve on rice, in tortillas, or in a tortas (sandwiches).
Notes
- tortillas or tortilla chips
- rice and beans
- shaved cabbage, avocado and radish slices
- sour cream
- cheese
- salsas
- hot sauces
Video
Nutrition Information per Serving
How Spicy to Make the Marinade?
Usually the beef marinade isn’t all too spicy. The spice would come in the salsa or sides of chopped jalapeno. but you can certainly make the marinade spicy by adding about 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper.
Freezing leftovers
It’s a great way to have meal prep: freeze the leftover carne asada. Or you can make extra and freeze the leftovers for future meals.
More Easy recipes:
- Grilled garlic parmesan corn
- air fryer steak bites with mushrooms
- how to cook air fryer steak
- More great Mexican and Cinco de Mayo Recipes
- Check out these delicious Crispy Shrimp Rolled Tacos Recipe
- This carne asada recipe was originally published in 2017 and updated in 2025
3 Comments on “Carne Asada for Tacos, Burritos, Salads and More!”
I really love this carne asada recipe. We’ll be making this again for fourth of july. Can’t wait.
This recipe is awesome!!!!
The marinade is spot on. It tastes just like the pre marinated meat I buy from the Mexican market. I only waited the 1 hour, and then grilled the meat. It tastes great.
I recommend this recipe.
Yay! so glad you enjoyed the recipe. It’s definitely a favorite for us too.