Thai Coconut Lime Grilled Skirt Steak (2024)

Why We Love This Recipe For Thai Coconut Lime Grilled Skirt Steak

I have and always will be a sucker for Thai food, so it came to no surprise that I fell in love with this Thai Skirt Steak after only the first time making it. The coconut Thai flavors of the steak marinade is like a flavor bomb! It will take the grassiest of grass-fed steaks and transport them to a coconut-lime-ginger paradise.

This healthy skirt steak is a great recipe for entertaining, as I can promise you any friend or family member will be very impressed by the flavor. I’d serve it with a side of roasted broccolini or broccoli and fluffy jasmine rice. I also often serve it with lime wedges, toasted peanuts and a generous drizzle of Sriracha on top. Some thinly sliced Thai chilis would also be delicious.

Recipe Highlights

• It’s the perfect make-ahead recipe since you can leave the steak to marinate for several hours or overnight.
• Once you have the marinated steak, you only need about 8 minutes of total cooking time.
• Skirt steak is relatively inexpensive so this recipe shouldn’t break the bank!

Key Ingredients For This Recipe

• Lite Coconut Milk: I prefer to use lite coconut milk to cut out some of the calories from fat, however, you can use regular fat coconut milk if you’d prefer. Look for the kind with no other added ingredients.
• Coconut Sugar: This you can often find in the baking aisle. If you can’t find it for some reason, use brown sugar, agave or maple syrup instead.
• Lime: You’ll need both the zest and juice from the lime.
• Thai Fish Sauce: Thai fish sauce is one of those staple ingredients in Thai cooking. Just a glug or two here really pumps up the overall savory nature of the recipe.If fish isn’t an option for you, substitute for coconut aminos or soy sauce.
• Ginger Root: Fresh ginger is best for recipes like these. You can easily grate it with a microplane. If you don’t feel like grating it yourself though, you can get frozen pre-grated ginger cubes from Trader Joe’s. Or simply mince the ginger by hand with a sharp knife.
• Skirt Steak: Skirt steak is flavorful, inexpensive, and easy to prepare if you keep a few things in mind. It’s very thin, so it is easy to overcook it. And you have to cut it across the grain to make sure it isn’t too tough. Don’t worry, I am here to walk you through it.
• Kosher Salt

How to Properly Cut Skirt steak

Before Cooking: Find the grain and go against it

Usually, you can find skirt steak in criovac packages. Since flank steaks are so popular now and so expensive, skirt seems to be more readily available and a lot more affordable. When you take skirt steak out of the package, it’ll likely need to be unrolled or unfolded. When you do that, you’ll first notice that it can be very long. Like, twice the length of your cutting board sometimes! The trick is to cut it into short, manageable steaks, about 4 inches in length. Doing this will serve two important purposes.

1)Since the steak will be thicker on one end than the other, you’ll have smaller sections of relatively evenly thick meat. Some will be thinner than others and will require a shorter cooking time, and/or a cooler spot on the grill.

2)It will give you a smaller piece to slice once it has been grilled. Which brings me to my terrible drawing. (Please ignore the fact that I chose to make this masterpiece with a dried out marker from my girls’ art bin.)

Look at terrible drawing #1. The grain in a skirt (unlike a flank) runs across the width. To make your bites of steak more tender, once it has been grilled, you’ll want to cut through that grain (picture #2.) In other words,you have to cut the steak first crosswise into steaks, grill it, then slice it lengthwise into strips. If you hadn’t done step one before grilling, then step two would require you to slice the steak in ridiculously long unmanageable two-cutting board length long sections. I hope that makes sense!

After Cooking: Let it rest then slice it against the grain

It is really important for skirt steak, especially with grass-fed beef, that you give it a nice rest after it comes off the grill. This will allow the juices in the steak to settle down, the fibers to relax and the moisture to redistribute through the grilled steak. If you skip this, the juices will spill out onto the cutting board, and the meat will be dry and tough.

Look back at drawing terrible #2 to see how to cut the steak. (That’s supposed to be a carving knife!) So you’ll be cutting from cut end to cut end, through each fiber.

FAQS and Expert Tips

What To Serve With This Thai Steak Recipe

1. Serve with rice, rice noodles or celophane noodles.
2. These simple Sesame Noodles are a great make ahead option and go with a variety of Asian-inspired flavors.
3. My Asian Green Beans with shiitakes, fermented black beans and garlic are yummy with this steak. Another easy green vegetable to try is with what my family has affectionately dubbed The Best Green Bean Recipe.
4. This Asian Coleslaw with sesame and ginger is super fast and colorful.
5. Use in a rice bowl. Top with cilantro, lime and chopped roasted peanuts. Make a simple Peanut Sauce to drizzle over it.
6. Try our Roasted Snap Peas with sesame seeds.

Additional Steak Recipes to Try

• This is a great way to use up some of the bounty of summer tomatoes and fresh herbs: Grilled Tomato Herb Flank Steak
• Cajun Flank Steak: A simple recipe with minimal ingredients but tons of spicy flavor!
• Chili Garlic Steak with Mint Napa Cabbage Slaw with tips on how to broil flank steak!
• Grilled Sirloin with Chimichurri Sauce it’s a classic combo for a reason- you gotta try it!