Chipotle Orange Steak Fajitas

Normally we’d use a flank steak in steak fajitas, but the london broil was on sale this week. The meat needs to marinate for the better part of the day, but the actual preparation and cooking was rather easy. We cooked it a tad long – we didn’t take into account that the extra thickness of this cut would increase the amount of residual cooking that occurred. Even though it was more medium than medium rare, it was still delicious.

Servings and Times

Serves: 6
Preparation Time: 25 minutes
Cooking Time: 20 minutes

Tools and Appliances

Links Provided By

Ingredients

We begin by using our microplane zester to grate 1 lime and 1 orange for their zest. We then place the 2 limes in the microwave for 20 seconds to soften them a bit. We cut them open and juice them into a measuring cup. The limes yield 1/4 cup of juice. Next, we cut the oranges in half and squeeze them into the measuring cup. The oranges yield an additional 1/2 cup of juice. In a resealable storage bag, we combine the juices, garlic, ancho chili powder, cumin, 1/4 teaspoon of salt, and vegetable oil. We put the scored (shallow slices in a criss-cross pattern) steak in the marinade and turn it several times to coat. We place the entire bag in refrigerator for about 7 hours (anywhere between 4 and 24 hours is good, but much longer and the acid in the lime juice will change the texture of the meat).

We remove the bag from the refrigerator 30 minutes before cooking it on the grill. When we are ready to slap it on the grill, we pat it dry with paper towels.

We heat the grill for a few minutes on medium heat. Prior to putting the steak on the grill, we put some of the Vidalia onion wedges and the mushrooms on the grill. We grill the veggies until just softened.

We cook the steak for about 10 minutes on each side. It is a very thick steak, over 2 inches. After that, we remove the steak from the grill and check the temperature with our digital meat thermometer. It reads 130 degrees F, which corresponds to medium-rare, when allowed to rest – perfect for fajitas.

We let the steak rest for a few minutes to seal in the juices. While we wait, we cut up the vegetables into good sized pieces. Too small and the texture of the veggies will be lost. Too big and we’ll pull out large chunks when we bite into our fajitas.

Rather than cutting the steak vertically, we make the cuts on a diagonal (closer to horizontal than straight up and down). This makes the strips fuller and really adds to the experience of fajitas.

The steak is served on the cutting board with the hot and cold sides also on the table. When we are ready to eat, we heat the tortillas in the microwave on a dinner plate between dampened paper towels. Everyone helps themselves, placing steak, cheese, and veggies on the tortillas. Wonderful!

Send us feedback on this recipe
Search Google for other Chipotle Orange Steak Fajitas recipes
Find cookbooks fromAmazon.com: Dinner, Grill, Mexican, Main-course, Meat