This amazing Chipotle Carne Asada Recipe is an easy carne asada marinade recipe. It's a delicious blend of sweet, spicy and oh, so flavorful! This carne asada recipe is perfect for carne asada fries, tacos, burritos, and nachos. It's a restaurant-quality recipe made at home.
Your friends and family are going to love this thinly sliced carne asada steak, seared beef, made with a sweet and spicy marinated and served with warm tortillas, avocados, and fresh salsa. It tastes like it came straight from the Chipotle menu. Be sure to watch the attached video in the recipe card on how to make carne asada tacos, they're so good.
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Chipotle Carne Asada Video Tutorial
What's The Best Carne Asada Meat?
- Skirt steak--or sometimes referred to as tenderloin steak, has even more intense beefy flavor than flank steak. It does contain more tough muscles than flank steak, though, so it should only be cooked to rare or medium-rare for the most tender texture.
- Flank Steak--is a more lean option and has a great, intense meaty flavor.
- Sirloin Steak--Lean, juicy and moderately tender beef that is very affordable. This steak has no bones and very little fat, making it taste delicious any way it's cooked. To make Carne asada, cut thin cut strips of sirloin steak. It can be nearly as tender as a filet mignon, making it an excellent value.
The reality is any of these cuts can work great. If your grocery store already has carne asada cut and ready to go, use that. If not, any of these other options will work great.
Best Carne Asada Marinade
This easy beef marinade only takes a few minutes to put together. When there's a big sale on carne asada at the supermarket, we love to load up on it, made a couple of extra batches of this marinade, and freeze it for later. It's such a treat to pull this out of the freezer during a busy weeknight. It's easy peasy and so incredibly delicious!!
It ain't pretty but it does a great job tenderizing the meat and infusing it with so much flavor! This marinade recipe makes quite a bit too. You can add up to another pound of beef in this marinade.
Also, pro-tip, to keep things a little less messy, use tongs to pull the steak from the marinade.
When planning on how much raw meat to plan per person, plan on ⅓ pound of meat per adult for and ¼ lb of meat per child.
Carne Asada is beef. The cut of beef you use should be flavorful, but it doesn't need to be tender. Carne asada is usually made from skirt steak but you can also use flank steak or sirloin steak.
Carne asada is traditionally made using skirt steak or flank steak. The two cuts are very similar and can be used interchangeably. The two meat cuts do have a few differences.
The best way to get tender carne asada is to cook it quickly at a high temperature to break down the fat and seal in the natural juices. A great steak marinade will help to make your steak extra flavorful and juicy but be there's no need to marinate for more than 24 hours. Don't over cook the meat. There should be just a little pink in the center.
This carne asada recipe can be made into several different meals. Here are a few we love.
Ways to enjoy Carne Asada
- Tacos
- Burritos
- Fries
- Nachos
- Quesadillas
- Burrito bowls
- Salad
What to serve with Carne Asada
- Cilantro lime rice
- Black beans
- Refried Beans
- Ranch Salsa
- Lime Juice (small chunks of fresh lime)
- Pico de Gallo or Fresh Salsa
- Cheese
- Sour cream
- Diced onion
- Guacamole
- Pico de gallo or Fresh Salsa
- Fresh Lime Juice- just a squeeze
If you love Chipotle and want more recipes, be sure to try out our Chipotle Chicken Recipe, Carnitas Tacos, Chipotle chicken burrito, Cheddar Queso, and an Easy Guacamole Recipe
Ingredients in Chipotle Carne Asada
- Carne Asada- or thinly sliced steak. If you're slicing your own steak, you can slightly freeze the steak to make it easier to slice.
- Adobo Sauce- scoop it from the can. If you like extra spicy meat, use the -Chipotle peppers in Adobo sauce (you may want to wear gloves if you have sensitive skin. Just scrape the seeds out of the pepper and mince the peppers.
- Lime juice (or the juice of 2 large limes) You can also sub half orange or lemon juice. Some people use soy sauce in their carne asada recipe but this one is more sweet, spicy, and salty.
- Brown Sugar- light brown sugar is great
- Avocado Oil- or olive oil works fine too.
- Cilantro- (finely chopped)
- Garlic Cloves (minced)
- Chili Powder
- Salt and Pepper to taste
Tips:
- Add the ingredients of the marinade to a Ziplock bag, No need to get your hands or another dish dirty. (If your family doesn't like chunks, add all the marinade ingredients to a blender and blend until smooth before adding it to the meat.)
- This is also such a great beef recipe to freeze. If you find a great deal on steak, thinly slice it, make a big batch of this beef marinade and put it into sealable containers or bags and freeze it. I like to divide it up into portions that accommodate my family for a meal. It makes dinner time so easy when you have a freezer meal waiting for a busy night or lazy weekend.
- Be sure not to over-cook your beef. There should be some pink in the middle.
- For best results, make on the stovetop but grilled works ok too.
- I've played around with this recipe a lot and have marinated the steak anywhere from 2-24 hours.
Chipotle Carne Asada Recipe
Ingredients
- 2 lbs Carne Asada sliced meat the marinade recipe will be enough for up to 4 pounds of beef
- 3 Tablespoons Adobo Sauce Just scoop it fom the can. If you like your meat extra spicy, use the Chipotle peppers in Adobo sauce (you may want to wear gloves if you have sensitive skin. Just scrape the seeds out of the pepper and mince the peppers.
- ¼ cup lime juice (or the juice of 2 large limes) You can also sub half orange or lemon juice.
- ¼ Cup Brown Sugar
- ¼ cup Avocado Oil
- ½ cup fresh cilantro (finely chopped)
- 5 large garlic cloves (minced)
- 1 teaspoon chili powder
- 1 teaspoon tsp salt
- ½ teaspoon pepper
- 1 med lime Add lime juice to the meat after it's cooked
Instructions
- In a large ziploc bag, combine the adobo sauce, (chipotle peppers too for extra spice), lime juice, avocado oil, brown sugar, finely chopped cilantro, minced garlic, chili powder, salt and pepper.
- Mix and then add the meat. You can use pre-sliced carne asada, flank steak, skirt steak, sirloin steak or tenderloin. They're all good options. You can use the pre-sliced meat or slice your own thinly.
- The best way to cook this recipe is on the stove-top. Drizzle a little olive oil or avocdo oil in a large non-stick saucepan (a cast iron pan or a grill pan works great too) and sear the meat, on medium-high heat, on both sides. The amount of time will depend on how thick your meat is. I prefer the meat to be cooked medium rare to medium -- a little pink in the middle. Sear the meat for 2-3 minutes per side making sure you salt and pepper both sides as it cooks.
- Let me meat sit on a plate after it's cooked for about 5 minutes. This way it will let the juices redistribute in the meat. Slice the meat and then toss it in the meat juices from the platter.
- Serve this Carne Asada Recipe on tacos, nachos, burritos, or Carne Asada fries. Enjoy!
Nutrition
Here are some other great beef recipes you'll love
- Easy Taco Soup Recipe
- Mississippi Pot Roast
- Shredded Beef Tacos
- Asian Beef Kabobs
- Beef and Broccoli Teriyaki
- Old Fashioned Sloppy Joe's
- Meatloaf Recipe
- Top Round Roast
- Best Beef Recipes
- Dinner Ideas
- Healthy Dinner Ideas
- More Dinner Idea
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This amazing Chipotle Carne Asada Recipe is an easy carne asada marinade recipe. It's a delicious blend of sweet, spicy and oh, so flavorful! This carne asada recipe is perfect for carne asada fries, tacos, burritos, and nachos. It's a restaurant-quality recipe made at home.
Carne Asada is a dish of grilled and sliced beef, usually marinated and then searing to impart a charred flavor.
Carna asada is thinly sliced skirt steak or flank steak. You can achieve similar results with thinly sliced skirt steak, sirloin steak, tenderloin steak, or rib steak.
A good marinade and also pounding (tenderizing) before searing helps make your carne asada more tender.
Donna
Have you frozen the meat after cooking or only before? Thinking of using the recipe for a grad party and making in bulk. Any suggestions?
The Carefree Kitchen
To be honest I haven't tried freezing it after it's cooked. Because you're planning it for a party, maybe try it before the big day. I'd love to know how it goes!
Lilly
At First I wasn't sure to use this recipe because it didnt seem to have a marinating time. However, I marinated it for like 3 hours, and the flavor was AMAZING! Best Steak I have made 🙂 Thank you so much!!
The Carefree Kitchen
I'll go make the marinating time more visible. Thanks for letting me know. Yes, 3 hours is great. I usually tell people 2-24 hours. It makes such tender and juicy Carne Asada!
The Carefree Kitchen
I'd love to hear if your family liked this as much as mine!!