Carne Asada Marinade
24 Comments
Updated Mar 13, 2023
This post may contain affiliate links. See my disclosure policy.
This carne asada marinade is packed with all the essential Mexican flavors. It’s zesty, spicy, and refreshing from the use of six simple ingredients. Just whisk everything together, marinate the steak for a few hours, and voila. You’ll have one juicy and tasty steak in no time.
If you love Mexican cuisine, carne asada is probably no stranger to you. It’s chopped into bits for tacos, mixed in with french fries, and so much more. But what really makes or break a delicious carne asada is the marinade. Without it, it would just be a boring ol’ flank steak.
Once you taste the flavors in this fresh, authentic carne asada marinade, you’ll be marinating steak on the regular, just to enjoy it.
Carne Asada Marinade Ingredients
Best of all? This marinade is so easy to make. All you need are 6 ingredients that you might already have on hand. But, feel free to tweak this recipe to your liking! You can make it sweeter by adding an orange, or more spicier by adding paprika.
- Olive Oil
- Limes
- Fresh Cilantro
- Garlic Cloves
- Cumin Powder
- Chili Powder
- Salt And Pepper
How To Make A Carne Asada Marinade
Ready to make your taste buds happy? Here’s how to make and use this marinade:
- Whisk all of the ingredients together in a small bowl.
- Place the steak in a glass or ceramic baking tray and pour the marinade on top, ensuring both sides are well coated. Then cover the tray with plastic wrap and marinate for 1-4 hours.
How To Store This Marinade
It’s best to make this marinade right before you plan to use it, for the freshest flavor.
According to foodsafety.gov, you can store marinated meat in the fridge for up to 5 days. But I highly doubt your steak will last that long, as you’ll want to eat it. Just make sure to cover the glass or baking tray while it’s marinating in the refrigerator.
More Mexican Seasonings And Dressings
- For a taco salad, a drizzle of avocado dressing will be the perfect touch.
- If you’re making shrimp tacos or a taco soup, coat your proteins in this rich and flavorful taco seasoning.
- For the perfect chicken fajitas flavor, this homemade fajita seasoning is spot on.
Now that you know how to make the marinade, are you ready to grill a delicious carne asada steak? Head on over to my carne asada recipe for all the details!
Carne Asada Marinade
Description
Ingredients
- ⅓ cup olive oil
- 3 limes, juiced (about 6 tablespoons)
- ½ cup fresh cilantro, chopped
- 4 garlic cloves, minced
- 1 teaspoon cumin powder
- ½ teaspoon chili powder
- salt and pepper, to taste
Instructions
- Whisk all of the marinade ingredients together in a small bowl.
- Pour the marinade on top of the steak, ensuring both sides of the steak are well coated.
- Cover and marinate for 1-4 hours in the refrigerator, before grilling.
Nutrition
©Downshiftology. Content and photographs are copyright protected. Sharing of this recipe is both encouraged and appreciated. Copying and/or pasting full recipes to any social media is strictly prohibited.
We really loved this marinade on our flank steak! It was delicious!
Glad you enjoyed this carne asada marinade, Jami!
This is delicious, made meat tender, juicy, flavorful. Will use recipe from now on, thanks for not using soy sauce or Worcestershire sauce. Am inspired to use it on chicken, shrimp, pork chops even.
Thank you so much, I highly recommend this nice marinade.
Glad you found a winning carne asada marinade!
How many days can I marinate the meat
You can marinate it between 2 to 24 hours, but nothing more than that.
How much marinade will this make? Enough for 1 lb of beef? 2 lbs?
This will be good for about 1 1/2lbs of flank steak.
Awesome! Used marinade with flank steak and chicken thighs and everyone raved!! Thank you!
Used this marinade in steak and chicken. Worked really well for both. The steak I marinaded for 24 hours and the chicken about 10. Acid didn’t destroy either. Delicious. My husband gave it a thumbs up too.
Hi Brenda- It’s always a good idea to marinate for a longer time to allow the flavors to really soak up. Glad both you and your husband enjoyed this recipe!
I just stuck the marinated carna asade in the fridge! Happy Cinco De Mayo!! Can’t wait to see how it turns out.
This recipe is so flavorful! I made Carne Asada Fries and my family loved it! It was so delicious and will definitely be making it again!
So glad your whole family enjoyed this carne asada marinade! Looks like you’ll need to whip this up again for Cinco De Mayo :)
My family LOVES carne asada! I can’t wait to use this marinade for dinner this week!
Hi Jessica – This marinade will sure give it that authentic Mexican taste to it!
This marinade is so easy and perfectly delicious. I cannot wait to make some tacos.
Hi Andrea- This will be the cherry on top :)
I love this marinade! Fresh cilantro makes all the difference. SO good!
Fresh cilantro really does make all the different! This will help brighten up the rich savoriness of the steak :)
I just got a beautiful big bunch of cilantro. I’m going to make the marinade and grill some steak. :)
Hi Anita – This will be perfect then for your next steak dish :)
Wow very interesting recipe. I am going to try it with a vegetarian dish.
It’s definitely a zesty marinade!