What Is Flank Steak (And How Should You Cook It?)

While prized cuts like chateaubriand or filet mignon command a high price for their effortless tenderness, the butcher shop is also full of budget-friendly options that require a little more strategy. That is typically where the relatively thin, pliable flank steak slots in, as a somewhat cheaper alternative to fancier flesh that still cooks up quite deliciously, provided you understand how to prepare it. This lean protein taken from the underside of the cow all but requires a marinade and brief heat to reach its ideal finish, but it needn't get much more complicated than that.

A flank steak's absence of fat is largely why you need to take the extra marinating step that you might be inclined to skip with more marbled slabs. In something like a ribeye, the marbling — the lacy, ivory lines of fat running through the meat – helps to make it a bit more tender by the time it reaches the plate without as much intervention from the cook. The flank steak, in contrast, needs the acid present in an ideal marinade ratio to have a fair chance at tenderness. That same absence of fat also makes a flank steak particularly vulnerable to toughness, but you can stave off that threat by keeping its doneness to medium at the absolute max. That means that, whether you're cooking a marinated flank on the grill or on the stovetop, its internal temperature should not top 145 degrees Fahrenheit.

Flank steak and tacos go together like, well, flank steak and tacos. And we happen to have a recipe for grilled flank steak tacos with stone fruit salsa right here. It calls for a 30-minute minimum marinade of olive oil, red wine vinegar, lime juice, garlic, chili powder, salt, and pepper that you can actually use for a lot of other flank steak preparations. We also won't tell anyone if you adapt this one to make on the stovetop, in which case you'll want to cook it for around five minutes over medium-high on each side, pretty similarly to how you'd have done it on the grill.

You can also broil your flank steak for the same amount of time to fill these or any tacos, to slice and pile onto sandwiches, or to serve as a main with simply sauteed or roasted vegetables. Flank steak is also great fired right alongside those veggies in a stir-fry, in which case you can slice it into strips against the grain before cooking, and ultimately serve it over rice. If you have time to plan ahead, you can also marinate your flank steak in advance overnight for maximum impact.