Recipe Share: Marinated Flank Steak with Crash Hot Potatoes and Green Salad

This steak is one of my favorite "fancy" meals to make. It is so easy and so flavorful. You can eat it in a quesadilla, taco, on top of a salad, or on its own. Whenever I make dinner for a family, this is one of my go to meals. I either make it with the Pioneer Woman's Mac n Cheese or with a potato 

side of some sort. (Below I made it with the Pioneer Woman's Crash Hot Potatoes.) Oh, and I always make it with this yummy green salad. So delicious! 

Marinated Flank Steak

Ingredients:

1.5 - 2.5 lb. flank steak

unseasoned meat tenderizer

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

1 packet of Good Seasons brand Italian dressing mix

(I've also used lime juice in this recipe and a combination of lime and lemon juice, and both those options are tasty, too. The lime juice gives it a nice zing.)

Directions:

I like to line a cookie sheet with foil and place my steak on it, so I don't dirty a tray for this process. Liberally sprinkle the meat with unseasoned meat tenderizer (find this in the spice section of your grocery store - it's a white powdery substance), and using a fork, pierce the meat all over. Turn the meat over, and again, sprinkle with tenderizer and pierce with fork. Whisk together the fresh lemon juice, vegetable oil and Good Seasons Italian dressing mix in a bowl to make the marinade. (You'll need 2-3 lemons, and you can find the dressing mix by the other salad dressing & dip mix packets at your grocery store.) Pour the marinade in a large Ziploc bag, and carefully place the steak in the bag with it. Zip it up and turn the steak over a few times in the bag to get the marinade all over it. Place the marinating steak flat in the refrigerator for at least four hours. (I usually turn mine over half way through this time, just to make sure the marinade is getting evenly absorbed.)

Heat grill to medium high, remove steak from marinade, and grill 8-10 minutes per side for medium to medium well. (If you prefer your steak medium rare, grill 6-7 minutes per side.) Because flank steaks tend to be uneven in their thickness (the ends are often much thinner than the middle), if the middle is still undercooked when I slice my steak, I will simply turn on a sautee pan to medium high and throw those undercooked pieces into the pan to finish cooking. You can tell if your steak is done the way you want it by pressing down on the steak with your finger. If it's still pretty soft to the touch, it's rare or medium rare. If it's pretty firm, then it's medium well or well done.

Remove steak from grill, cover with a foil tent, and let rest at least 5-10 minutes. Thinly slice steak on an angle, going against the grain of the steak. Enjoy!

Pioneer Woman's Crash Hot Potatoes

Ingredients:

New Potatoes (or other small, round potato - I'm in love with Yukon golds. They are so much tastier than regular potatoes. If you've never tried them, please do!)

Olive Oil

Kosher Salt

Pepper

Rosemary, finely chopped

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Boil the potatoes until fork tender. (It usually takes mine about 12-15 mins.) Drizzle a generous amount of olive oil onto a sheet pan. Place the fork tender potatoes on the sheet pan and spread them out a bit. With a potato masher, smash the potatoes a bit. (You want them to still hold together, so don't smash them all the way.) Brush (or spoon) olive oil onto the tops of each potato. Sprinkle with kosher salt, pepper, and rosemary. Bake for 20-25 minutes on the top rack of your hot oven (or until they've turned golden and crispy.)

Enjoy! (These would taste awesome with other herbs, too... chives, thyme, parsley... the sky's the limit with these babies.)