Skirt Steak Marinating Time Calculator

Skirt steak presents a unique problem for marinades: How long should I leave this thing in here? Out comes thin slice of meat from the fridge, onto the cutting board, flattened out, covered with garlic and lime juice. Will I take it off soon enough or will it be just raw beef with some extra ingredients on top? Or will I take it off too late, letting the acidic liquid turn outside to chalky leather?

Skirt steak is different than any other common cut in the store because its structure are different. But recipe calculator on this page does the number-crunching based off your desired acid strength and piece thickness, sparing you the guessing game and hopefully leaving you with something that tastes good rather then texture-yuck.

How Long to Marinate Skirt Steak

Why is the cut so picky about timing? Because of the way grain is structured. Skirt steak is located on diaphragm region of animal and has lots of connective tissue. This tissue are broken down upon searing (thus the name). And because the meat is very porous, flavors soak right into it.

Submerging sirloin or flank in a marinade penetrates those denser strands of muscle fiber over hours. But skirt steak behave closer to a sponge. Put a skinny piece of skirt steak into high acid lime marinade for six hours, and you don’t tenderize the meat any more then it already was tender. Instead, you cook the outside layers of protein with citric acid. A lot of people believe longer = tastier. With this cut, however, longer usually = mush.

If you care about consistency, you should of know whether your skirt steak is inside or outside skirt. Most typical supermarkets carries inside skirt because it’s thin, lean, and quick to soak up a marinade. Four or five hours won’t spoil it; one to two will be enough for well-balanced lime mixture to work its magic. Outside skirt is richer, thicker, and more accommodating. Give it time: no problem.

This page’s tool take those distinctions into account (no need to remember two sets of numbers!) and, depending on the meat’s true thickness along with the cut type, it’ll adjust the range accordingly. Knowing how much the meat weighs doesn’t matter as much as measuring its midsection once you trim off silverskin.

Another biggie is acid. Pure vinegar (or citrus) break through the muscle fiber quicker than an oil-based, herb-y, mild-beer marinade. So if you’re making something heavy in vinegar/lime-juice, you’ve got less time before the food hits its limit. The calculator lets you see where that line falls. It will prevent you from accidentally turning perfectly good dinner into mush by marinating too long overnight.

Unlike acid, salt takes time to work… Penetrating deeply but not tearing apart muscle fibers in the process. You can use more salt, which keep the meat moist as it chills, assuming you don’t go above safe range of refrigerator temperatures. That is why there was a question about the soy content or brine strength in the input. That changes things a lot.

Chemistry’s only half the battle: practical handling play an equal part. In package, skirt steak want to fold in on itself. Drop that bad boy in a bag and some of meat won’t even see any marinade, ever. You want to open up those layers and make sure each surface gets covered. If you have schedule for it, turn the bag over once or twice during marinating. It’s a little work but keeps things from being bland in the end dish.

Once the time is up, drain out the steak completely. Then pat it dry with paper towels. No good comes from wet surface steaming on the grill; what you’re going for is char, not soup. It’s important to remember here: we’re trying to highlight the beefy-ness of this particular cut, not overwhelm it, let alone tear apart its structure. Let’s let the time do the talking, pay attention to how thin the cut is and don’t be afraid to throw that meat on some hot coals while it’s still attached.

Marinating at just the right time is what separates a good taco from a “this-taco-will-stay-in-my-mind-for-days” taco.