Grilled Beef Fajitas Recipe

Grilled Beef Fajitas Recipe. How to grill fajitas in your own backyard, and make them even better than your local Tex-Mex restaurant.

Fajitas. The recipe that helped Mexican restaurants conquer America. Fajitas are actually Tex-Mex, a blend of both sides of the Norteno border between Mexico and US, where the cooking doesn't let a little thing like a line on a map stop it.

(Well, actually…America is in love with the holy trinity of Tex-Mex cooking: Fajitas, Margaritas, and tortilla chips with salsa. I'm getting hungry just typing this.)

I learned a fascinating fajita marinade from Robb Walsh in The Tex-Mex Grill and Backyard Barbacoa Cookbook. There are two surprise ingredients that don't sound very Mexican - Pineapple and Soy Sauce, but this marinade is a great recipe. Soy sauce is full of umami, which I've talked about before; it adds extra beefiness to the steak.
Pineapple juice is the really interesting part - it contains an enzyme, bromelain, which is proteolytic (that is, it breaks down protein). I had to double-check that sentence with my wife, the chemistry teacher.

Pineapple juice tenderizes the tough cuts of meat that are used in fajitas; skirt steak, flank steak, chuck steak, flat iron steak, sirloin steak, or whatever cut of beef your local Mexican joint can get cheap from their supplier.

That's right - real fajitas are skirt steak. If I make skirt steak fajitas, I'm being redundant. If I make chicken fajitas, I'm making "chicken beef skirt steaks." But, c'mon…fajitas have taken on a whole new meaning north of the border._
Unlike most marinades, which don't penetrate the meat, this one will really do the job…to the point of turning the meat to mush if marinated for too long. I wouldn't marinate this for more than a couple of hours. This is a marinade that really works. It results in tender beef, sweetened by the pineapple and salted by the soy sauce with a hit of acidic lime. Combine it with grilled peppers and onions, wrap it in a tortilla, and top with some salsa for the best steak fajitas.

Ingredients

Steak Fajita Marinade

• ¾ cup pineapple juice
• ¾ cup soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• Zest and juice of 1 lime (zest it with a microplane; that's the easiest way)
• 1 clove garlic, minced

Fajitas

• 1 beef Flank Steak (roughly 1.5 lbs, and 1-inch thick, or substitute skirt steaks or flat iron steaks)
• 3 green bell peppers (A stoplight pepper pack: green bell pepper, red bell pepper, and yellow bell pepper)
• 1 large yellow onion
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt or fine sea salt
• 3 serrano or jalapeno peppers
• 20 to 24 flour tortillas (fajita size, of course)

Accompaniments (optional)

• Shredded lettuce
• Shredded cheese
• Sour cream
• Salsa or Pico de Gallo
• Lime wedges

How to Grill Beef Fajitas

Marinate the beef

Mix the marinade ingredients, then put ½ cup aside for later. Pour the rest of the marinade into a gallon zip-top bag, add the flank steak, squeeze out all the air, and marinate for at least 30 minutes or up to 2 hours. (Don't go past 2 hours, or the pineapple will make the meat too soft.)

Prep the vegetables

Core and seed the bell peppers then cut each into 3 to 4 large, flat pieces. (Peppers usually have 3 or 4 sides, and I make each "side" a piece.) Cut the onion into ½-inch thick slices. Sprinkle the bell peppers and onions with 1 teaspoon salt. Leave the serrano or jalapeno peppers whole.

Preheat the grill for direct medium heat (350°F)

Set the grill up for cooking at direct medium heat, about 350°F. On my Weber Summit, I preheat with all the burners on high for 10 to 15 minutes, brush the grill grates clean, then turn the burners down to medium. For a charcoal grill, I light a chimney ¾ full of charcoal, and wait for it to be covered with ash, then spread it in a tight single layer over half the grill grate.

Grill the steak, peppers, and onions

Take the flank steak out of the marinade and let any excess marinade drip off. Put the flank steak, pepper planks, onions, and hot peppers on the hot grill over direct heat. Grill the steak in a 3-3-3-3 pattern: grill for 3 minutes (lid closed if using a gas grill), then flip everything. Grill it for another 3 minutes, then flip everything, turning it 90 degrees while flipping so it gets a crosshatch of grill marks. Grill for another 3 minutes, then flip everything one last time. Grill for the final 3 minutes, or until the steak is at 125°F internal temperature in its thickest part, measured with an instant-read thermometer for medium doneness. Remove the flank steak to a baking dish and the vegetables to a large bowl. Pour ¼ cup of the reserved marinade over the flank steak and ¼ cup over the vegetables, turn them a few times to coat them with the marinade. Let the vegetables and meat rest until the tortillas are toasted.

Toast the tortillas in batches

Brush the grate clean with a grill brush. Lay as many tortillas as you can fit in a single layer on the grill. Toast the tortillas for 30 seconds to 1 minute or until light grill marks appear on the bottom. Flip the tortillas and toast them on the other side for about one more minute or until the tortillas start to puff up. Wrap the warm tortillas in a cloth towel. Repeat until all the tortillas are toasted. (This will probably take two to three batches, depending on the size of the grill.)

Slice, serve, and enjoy

Remove the serrano or jalapeno peppers from the bowl, peel off any blackened skin, slice them thin, and move them to a small serving dish. Slice the bell peppers into ½-inch thick slices, and cut each ring of onion in half. Put the bell peppers and onions back in the bowl, toss them again to coat with marinade, then move to a serving platter. Remove the flank steak from the marinade, cut in half lengthwise, then slice the long pieces crosswise as thin as possible. Move the sliced flank steak to the serving platter, and pour any juices from the cutting board over the steak. Serve and enjoy!

Equipment

A grill. Bigger is better because we're grilling a lot of food at once. (I love my extra-large Weber Summit gas grill; the extra space helps with this recipe)

Variations

Chicken Fajitas

Replace the flank steak with 2 pounds of boneless, skinless chicken breasts. The cooking time is the same.

Real fajitas

Fajita means "skirt steak" in Spanish, so to be authentic, use skirt steak instead of flank steak, and only cook for 2 minutes before rotating and flipping (4 minutes a side, 8 minutes total) because skirt steak is thinner than flank steak.

What to serve with grilled beef fajitas

You probably have your own favorite toppings for fajitas, but mine are salsa, sour cream, shredded lettuce, and a squeeze of fresh lime. My kids love generic "shredded Mexican cheese" from the grocery store, and I like crumbled Queso Fresco. Mexican Rice or  Cilantro Lime Rice  and Refried Beans make great side dishes.

Tips and Tricks

Cooking on a smaller grill

For this much cooking, It helps to have a grill with a lot of surface area, like my Weber Summit. With a smaller grill, cook in batches. Start with the beef, then move on to the peppers and onions, and finally, soften the tortillas. Cooking in batches will help if you are cooking on a charcoal grill because the heat will gradually decrease as you cook. You want to cook the beef over a hotter fire than the vegetables and the vegetables over a hotter fire than the tortillas.

Use a meat thermometer

I like my fajitas with a little pink in the middle, so I measure the temperature with a meat thermometer, aiming for 125°F internal temperature. If you want rare fajita meat, cook to 115°F internal temperature; if you want medium-rare, aim for 120°F.

Adapted from: Robb Walsh, The Tex-Mex Grill and Backyard Barbacoa Cookbook

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