Instant Pot Steak Tacos (Carne Asada) Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Do you cut meat before or after cooking carne asada tacos? ›

How Much Carne Asada per Person? You'll need approximately ½ pound of meat per person served, although your guests can easily eat more if the carne asada is the star of the show and not a topping or addition to a more filling meal.

Best cut of beef for Carne Asada

The BEST cuts for the Mexican version of the dish we all know and love are either skirt steak or flank steak. Personally, I prefer skirt steak (pictured). It's more tender and flavourful than flank and can be cooked well done (for those who prefer well) without getting tough and chewy.

You want to cut perpendicular to the muscle fibers so they become as short as possible. You can a have melt in your mouth steak off the grill but if you cut it parallel to the grain you will end up with long muscle fibers AKA chewy, rubbery tough meat. So cut AGAINST the grain!

Grill streaks 8 to10 minutes on one side or until moisture starts to pool on the top and beef releases easily from grates with tongs. Flip once, grilling on the other side for 8 to 10 minutes longer or until internal temperature reaches 145°F with meat thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the steak.

Less than a teaspoon of baking soda ensures that your steak remains juicy and tender—even after a speedy marinade. While other recipes demand hours of marinating, this baking soda hack makes a flank steak or any other fibrous cut of beef ready to sear after just an hour.

Each taco shell or small soft taco-size tortilla fits about 2 ounces or 1/4 cup of meat. If you add diced onions, you could stretch a pound of ground beef to make about a dozen tacos. With just the meat and spices, you can make about 8 tacos from a pound of meat.

Most people will eat about 1 to 2 ounces of meat per taco. For 20 people figure at least 70 to 80 tacos. That's about 10 pounds of meat roughly. People tend to fill tacos with solid meats like not ground beef or chicken with less meat fillings than ground meats.

Carne asada is typically made with skirt steak, but I wanted to test out a variety of inexpensive cuts to be sure. I bought a half dozen different cuts of beef and marinated them in a basic mixture of lime juice, garlic, cilantro, olive oil, and chiles before grilling them to medium-rare over hot coals.

Carne Asada – Asada (or asado) means “roasted” in Spanish. Carne asada is a spicy, marinated grilled steak that's cut into strips. This is the meat that goes into burritos and tacos. Pollo Asado – Pollo means “chicken” in Spanish, which means that pollo asado is grilled, marinated chicken.

What happens if you marinate carne asada too long? ›

Most recipes for marinating meat and poultry recommend six hours up to 24 hours. It is safe to keep the food in the marinade longer, but after two days it is possible that the marinade can start to break down the fibers of the meat, causing it to become mushy.

Heat on high to sear and then lower the heat to finish cooking. Make sure to use your stove vent, searing the steak this way can smoke up the kitchen! If you want, before adding the steak to the marinade, reserve a couple of tablespoons of the marinade to drizzle over the finished carne asada to serve.

It's important to cut carne asada AFTER cooking. You should be cooking the meat as a whole steak, then cut the cooked steak (after resting) into strips.

As meat cooks, the juices and moisture inside begin to rise to the surface. If you cut the meat as soon as it's done cooking, the juices will immediately leak out and pool onto the cutting board. By letting the meat rest, you give the muscle fibers time to relax and allow the juices to redistribute throughout the cut.

You can cut slice the meat into strips before or after cooking it. The grain is harder to see once it's cooked, but it's still there! You can cut slice the meat into strips before or after cooking it. The grain is harder to see once it's cooked, but it's still there!

For tacos, it is recommended to slice the steak into thin strips, approximately ¼ to ½ inch thick. Thin slices will cook quickly and make it easier to bite into the taco without the steak falling out.