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Chimichurri Steak: An Open-Ended Recipe

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Chimichurri steak is the bomb. If you’re not familiar, it’s basically just grilled steak with this badass Argentinian green sauce on top. It’s insanely tasty and totally different than what you’re probably used to putting on steak — so if you haven’t had the pleasure of sampling it before, ditch that bottle of A1, grab yourself a blender, and get ready to have your mind blown.

But here’s the thing: there’s not really a hard-set recipe for how to make it. It’s one of those open-ended things that everyone has their own unique take on. That’s not to say you should just jump in and start making it blindly, however. You can definitely botch it and make an horrible batch of chimichurri sauce if you’re not careful, so to help guide you on this mission, we’ll give you a set of open-ended directions that you can tweak and adjust to your liking. Here’s what you’ll need:

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Ingredients:

  • Steak (just grab your favorite cut)
  • 1 cup packed full of fresh parsley
  • 5-10 big garlic cloves (peeled)
  • 2 tablespoons fresh oregano leaves (Or dried. Whatever)
  • 1/2 cup extra-virgin olive oil 
  • ¼ cup red wine vinegar
  • 1 teaspoon Kosher salt

Optional additions

  • Red pepper flakes
  • Black pepper
  • Shallots
  • Cilantro
  • Cumin
  • Lemon

Equipment:

  • Blender or food processor
  • knife
  • cutting board
  • measuring cup

Cooking Directions

Measure out all of the main ingredients and toss ’em straight into your blender. If you’re not big on garlic, start small and only use about 5-6 cloves. If you’re wild about it, start with 8 and scale up from there. Don’t overdo it though — parsley should be the star of the show here. Once you’ve got everything in the blender, just pulse it a a few times until the parsley leaves are finely chopped up, but not pureed. You might have to scrape some leaves off the walls of your food processor to make sure they blend.

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After you’ve got a chunky-but-not-totally-liquid mix, give it a quick taste, and add in whatever its missing. Red pepper flakes give it a bit more heat, whereas cumin will make it taste more earthy/nutty/spicy. Cilantro and lemon both make the sauce a bit more bright, but you shouldn’t overdo it with either of them. Start slow, and if your mixture starts to approach a puree, just take it out of the blender and mix the remaining stuff in with a bowl and a whisk.

After that, you’re basically done. Use some of the sauce for basting your steaks while they’re on the grill, but save the bulk of it as a topper/dipping sauce for your meat. If you don’t eat it all in one sitting, it keeps for about two days in the fridge.

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