Sous Vide Flank Steak with Chimichurri Sauce

Sous Vide Flank Steak with Chimichurri Sauce

Flank steak is still one of my favorite cuts of meat due to the texture and versatility. It’s a relatively long and flat cut of meat, and used in traditional dishes like a London Broil and commonly used as a replacement for skirt steak in fajitas.

While it can be pan-fried, broiled and braised, my favorite preparation has been traditionally on the grill over gas or charcoal. However, combining it with sous vide gives me the best of every world — cooked perfectly edge to edge with a charred exterior.

We’ve never made a chimichurri sauce at home, but after a few experiments for this post, we made a version that we universally liked. We like a lot of heat in our house, so adjust the red chili flakes up or down to your liking.

In our various sous vide flank steak experiments, we’ve found the sweet spot is a 30-36 hour cook time. Less than 30 hours, it’s still too chewy, and more than 36 hours it’s too soft and we find ourselves missing the traditional texture you want with a flank steak.

The result is a super simple dish that takes the standard sous vide preparation of the flank steak, and adds the chimichurri sauce to give it a complexity in flavor. We adored it in our house and we are definitely making this again and again.

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Sous Vide Flank Steak with Chimichurri Sauce
Flank steak is still one of my favorite cuts of meat due to the texture and versatility. It’s a relatively long and flat cut of meat, and used in traditional dishes like a London Broil and commonly used as a replacement for skirt steak in fajitas. While it can be pan-fried, broiled and braised, my
Course main course
Cuisine american
Cook Time 2160 minutes
Servings
serving
Ingredients
Meat:
Chimichurri Sauce:
Course main course
Cuisine american
Cook Time 2160 minutes
Servings
serving
Ingredients
Meat:
Chimichurri Sauce:
Instructions
  1. Cook the flank steak:Start the sous vide water bath at 134F.
  2. Liberally season both sides of the flank steak with salt and pepper
  3. Vacuum seal the meat. (We recommend not using a ziploc bag due to the long cook time since it'll be almost guaranteed to leak)
  4. Cook for minimum 30 hours, up to 36 hours.
  5. 10 minutes before the cook time ends, start heating up your grill. You want it at 600F or hotter.
  6. Chimichurri sauce:Add all the ingredients to the a food processor.
  7. Pulse the food processor a few times to get things going, then turn it on to process it until everything is uniformly combined and smooth.
  8. Give the chimichurri sauce a taste and add salt to adjust the seasoning.
  9. Finish it: At the end of the cook time, pull the flank steak out, pat it dry, and throw it on the grill for a maximum of 45 seconds per side. You want a nice sear on the exterior but not cook the meat any further, otherwise you'll undo all your hard sous vide work.
  10. Pull the flank steak off the grill, and slice it in 1/2 inch slices, cut across the grain. This is super important, otherwise it will be really chewy.
  11. Top with the chimichurri sauce and enjoy!
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11 thoughts on “Sous Vide Flank Steak with Chimichurri Sauce

  1. I’m sure you already know this… but you may need to work on the lighting a bit for your food shots 🙂

  2. Hi Trevin. I am, basically, a vampire who needs to eat meat that is, at the very most, medium rare. Your top photo, with the sauce, looks perfect for my tastes. Your last photo looks well done as if it was a separate attempt. Which degree of doneness does this recipe achieve because I’d like to use it, but I need to know whether I should lower your stated temperature.

  3. Greig, the two photos are actually from the same attempt. The second photo is just fresh off the grill and the end facing the camera was exposed to the heat so it cooked more than the center, hence the lack of “vampire friendly” red 🙂

  4. Thank you, Trevin. Just to confirm then: if my steak comes out of 30 hours of sous vide without any blood, I can don my cape at full moon and come and get some of yours?

  5. Greig: What I can promise you is that if you follow the recipe, and don’t overcook it on the final sear, you’ll get what we show in the photos 🙂

  6. Thank you for the quick reply. By the way, I’ve just noticed that the avatar randomly allocated to my comments has rather vampiric canines. Coincidence? I don’t think so. The sun is about to rise here in London so I need to return to my chamber. Thanks again for your help.

  7. The top photo looks beautiful. Agreed the bottom photo not so much…

    Thank you for the recipe; I am starting one tonight….

  8. Hi guys, for some reason I cannot post comment at MC 72 ribs topic in this section. I would like to ask on your opinion. I am willing to invite friends and cook sous vide tenderloin steaks. I was thinking about red wine glaze from modernist cuisine, but you have mentioned that it dissapointed you. Would you suggest me to go for a different sauce? I would like it to be really a good one. Lets say, the best steak sauce… Thanks for your feedback

  9. @jakub: First though: I was disappointed in the glaze… on the other hand, I also made it as a sauce (not a glaze). I’m wondering if I’d continued to reduce it down to a super-thick glaze, if I would have a differing opinion.

    Second thought: You can usually make a pretty awesome “pan sauce” from the drippings out of the bags (when they’re done cooking). The basic steps are: cook the meat however you’d like. When it’s done, cut open the bags and let the juice drain into a saute pan. Mix in a cup of red wine, a cup of chicken stock and reduce until there is about 0.25 cups remaining. Throw some shallots in (and some balsamic, if that’s your thing)… and you’ve got a tasty as heck sauce.

    Also, making the MC glaze is a sh*tload of work (but that’s kind of the point :-))

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