This flank steak marinade is a sweet and savory blend of olive oil, garlic, soy sauce, brown sugar and spices. It produces tender and juicy marinated flank steak every time!
When the weather is nice I fire up the grill and make some marinated salmon, chicken tenders, or this fabulous and easy flank steak. This marinade will work on all cuts of steak, so feel free to get creative!
I love a tender and juicy grilled steak, and one of the best ways to add flavor to your meat is with a marinade. This flank steak marinade takes just 5 minutes to put together, yet imparts so much flavor. I love to serve this flank steak when I’m entertaining, everyone always asks me for the recipe!
How do you make flank steak marinade?
This marinade is a salty-sweet mixture of olive oil, soy sauce, brown sugar, Dijon mustard, garlic and Worcestershire sauce. Everything gets whisked together, then you can place the meat in a bowl with the marinade, or instead make the marinade in a gallon sized freezer bag and add the meat to the bag. Using a freezer bag saves on clean up time later on!
Can you marinate flank steak overnight?
Flank steak can absolutely be marinated overnight. I recommend marinating your steak for a minimum of 2 hours, or up to 24 hours.
HOW LONG DO YOU COOK STEAK?
I typically cook my flank steak for about 5-6 minutes per side, which leads to meat that’s cooked on the outside yet still pink in the center. The best way to gauge for doneness is to use a meat thermometer. I recommend cooking your flank steak to medium, which is an internal temperature of 145 degrees F. If you don’t want your meat to be pink, you can cook it to 150 degrees F for medium well, or 160 degrees F for well done.
HOW DO YOU SLICE FLANK STEAK?
It’s important to slice your flank steak against the grain so that it’s as tender as possible. You can find the direction of the grain by looking at your meat and seeing which way the muscle fibers run. Make sure to cut across those fibers rather than parallel to them.
Flank steak marinade tips
- I typically grill my marinated flank steak, either outdoors on a charcoal grill or inside on a grill pan. You can also bake, pan sear or broil your meat if you prefer.
- This recipe makes enough marinade for about 1 1/2 – 2 pounds of meat. If you’re cooking for a larger crowd, simply double the marinade amount.
- You’ll want to scrape the pieces of garlic off the meat before you cook it so that the garlic doesn’t burn on the grill.
- I like to reserve a few tablespoons of marinade before the meat goes in, then drizzle that marinade over the top of the cooked steak for added flavor.
- Serve your flank steak over mashed potatoes or rice with a steamed vegetable on the side. This steak is also great for salads or as a taco filling!
- A cut of meat similar to flank steak is skirt steak. If you want to use skirt steak, try checking out my delicious skirt steak marinade recipe!
- Looking for a Mexican inspired steak dinner? Give my steak fajita marinade a try!
While this marinade pairs perfectly with flank steak, it’s also fabulous when used with New York strip steak, sirloin, filet mignon or ribeye steak. It’s a recipe you’ll find yourself using all summer long!
More great steak recipes
Flank Steak Marinade
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup low sodium soy sauce
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 2 teaspoons Dijon mustard
- 1/2 teaspoon ground pepper
- 2 teaspoons garlic chopped
- 1 1/2 pounds flank steak
Instructions
- Combine the soy sauce, olive oil, brown sugar, cider vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, mustard and pepper in a resealable bag; seal and shake to combine.
- Reserve 2 tablespoons of the marinade for later use. Stir the garlic into the bag of marinade.
- Add the steak and marinate for 2-24 hours.
- Heat an outdoor grill or stove top grill pan to medium-high. Place the steak on the grill and cook for 5-6 minutes per side, depending on the thickness of your meat and the desired level of doneness.
- Remove the meat from grill and cover with foil. Let stand for 5-10 minutes and then slice thinly against the grain with a very sharp knife. Drizzle with reserved marinade, then serve.
Nutrition
This post was originally published on August 3, 2015 and was updated on March 28, 2019 with new content.
I love flank steak and this marinade is the best. I marinaded for 24 hours and 5 minutes on the grill both sides. OH My!! grilled beets and potatoes to go with it! My go to now!! Thanks!!
My 14 year old son LOVES this. The only thing I added was a little honey to the marinade, and then cracked pepper on top of the steak slices when serving. Let marinate for about 8 hours. Also, made slits in and stuffed thin slices of the garlic into the steak and mixed remainder of the garlic into the marinade. DELICIOUS and TENDER !!
10/10 – this recipe was absolutely phenomenal – we used regular soy sauce instead of low sodium and I would definitely recommend the low sodium like the recipe states but WOW, absolutely fantastic – we cooked our flank steak at 450° at about 8 minutes per side and it was absolutely delicious!
I added everything except I scored and brushed the topside (only) of the flank with honey plus small pinches or half a teaspoon of:
Seasoned Salt
Cayenne
Turmeric
Cumin
Ground Cinnamon
Paprika
Onion Powder
It brought out more of that Osso Buco type of sweetness pallet.
Thanks for the guide
My husband and I both felt this was the BEST flank steak we had ever had. The marinade is wonderful and we’re looking forward to trying it on other meats–maybe even tofu.
Thank you so much for such an easy and amazingly tasty recipe.
This is my go to recipe for any beef marinade. It always come out good! Love you site and recipes!
I’m noticing a theme. I start out on some other recipe, then end up here, like every night. I had to give you a shout out for always seeming to have the best version of the specific recipe I need. I am continuously gravitating to this site for good family recipes. That’s a hard niche, but you nail it. Thank you!
Amazing! I did not have dijon mustard so I just squeezed half a lemon instead and was great! 😊
I used this for flank steak and it was amazing. Do you think it would work as a good marinade for Chuck roast too?
Yes you’d juat want to make sure to cook it for a longer period of time over low heat so the roast can get tender!
I’m going to be using a charcoal grill. I hope it comes out tender. 🤞thank you!
Prepping this tonight for the grill tomorrow. The recipe states to reserve marinade from the raw steak and then drizzle it over the cooked steak before serving. Shouldn’t the marinade be cooked before doing that??
You reserve the marinade before you add the meat to it, so it’s safe!
LOL!! Yes!! I realized that as I was reading it to make it. It was great, btw!!
I really like the ability to adjust serving sizes! Making this tonight.
That was really really good. Thanks.
I added a 1/4 cup of red wine and marinated it over night. This was the best flank steak I’ve ever had in my life. It was unbelievably tender and juicy.
Two tablespoons of fresh minced ginger will make this recipe perfect. My family’s favorite barbecue.
I am q HUGE flank fan and make it quite often. This has to be one of the best marinades I have used and made the steak super tender. No tweaks needed. Perfect just the way it is. Thanks for sharing!
SO good. My girlfriend and I loved it, and she rarely eats steak.
I really like how you can adjust servings and it adjusts the ingredients! Love the recipe!
I marinated overnight and the meat was tender and flavorful!
Looks very good, did a little variation, like date syrup instead of brown sugar and added a few spices like, rosemary, thyme, sage ….will let you know how it turns out. Thank-you.
This was absolutely amazing. I cannot wait to make this again this summer. Thank you so much for the recipe!
This looks so good! Love how juicy that steam looks!