The Best Grilled Beef Recipes for Your Memorial Day Cookout

Overhead view of churrasco steak — Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez

Yes, burgers are a classic cookout food, but why stop there? It's hard to look at an open flame and not imagine a perfectly charred hunk of beef in one way, shape, or form. Whether you want a mojo-marinated skirt steak, a smoked porterhouse worth the splurge, or Armenian-style shish kebabs, you'll find the perfect recipe in this collection of our favorite grilled beef recipes for Memorial Day.

If you've got questions about your grilling set up, head over to our guide to grilling for tips, tricks, and techniques.

Perfect Grilled Steaks

J. Kenji López-Alt

When it comes to grilling steak like a pro, there are only a few things you really need to keep in mind: Start with thick steaks, salt them at least 40 minutes before cooking, reverse sear them over a two-zone fire, and check the temperature with an instant-read thermometer. Follow those steps and you'll end up with perfectly cooked meat every time.

Perfect Grilled Steaks
Montreal Smoked Meat

Serious Eats / Vy Tran

Montreal’s answer to pastrami features cured and smoked brisket that's thinly sliced and piled high on rye bread and slathered with yellow mustard.

Montreal Smoked Meat
Grilled Skirt Steak Fajitas

Melissa Hom

For our version of classic Tex-Mex fajitas, we marinate skirt steak with lime juice, brown sugar, and chile powder. We also add one somewhat untraditional ingredient—soy sauce—for extra savoriness. You can't have fajitas without sizzled peppers and onions, which we cook in a cast iron skillet placed right on the grill.

Grilled Skirt Steak Fajitas
Grilled Beef Galbi (Korean-Style Marinated Short Ribs)

Vicky Wasik

If you want to make Korean-style barbecue at home, beef galbi is a good place to start. Unlike thick-cut short ribs that are better-suited for braising, flanken-style beef short ribs are ideal for marinating and grilling due to their increased surface area and thinness. The food processor will help make quick work of the savory-sweet marinade.

Grilled Beef Galbi (Korean-Style Marinated Short Ribs)

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Chacarero Chileno (Chilean Steak and Green Bean Sandwiches)

Serious Eats / Estudio Como

This Chilean steak sandwich might be the best way to enjoy your green beans.

Chacarero Chileno
Crying Tiger (Thai-Style Grilled Steak With Dry Chili Dipping Sauce)

Serious Eats / Julia Hartbeck

The grilled aroma of this steak is just one of the things that makes this dish special. We like to serve it with the dry chile dipping sauce (jaew) on the side as opposed to dressing it like a salad so it retains the steak's smoky aroma and flavors.

Crying Tiger (Thai-Style Grilled Steak With Dry Chili Dipping Sauce)
Nigerian Beef Suya (Spiced Grilled Skewers)

Sho Spaeth

Suya is Nigerian street food at its finest: skewers of spiced, nutty, smoky, charred beef, served with onions, tomatoes, cilantro, lettuce, and lime juice. The spice blend seasons the meat and takes on a little welcome char and caramelization during cooking.

Nigerian Beef Suya (Spiced Grilled Skewers)
Khorovats (Armenian Shish Kebabs)

Serious Eats / Andrew Janjigian

Grilled skewers of beef, marinated in onion, red wine, and tomato paste, are a classic Armenian staple. Here, a special skewer setup for a charcoal grill recreates the type of rig traditionally used to cook shish kebab, without the need for a specialty grill.

Khorovats (Armenian Shish Kebabs)

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Churrasco Steak

Serious Eats / Amanda Suarez

This churrasco recipe channels the Argentine approach—it's cooked on a plancha or grill and bathed in a herbal and garlicky chimichurri sauce.

Churrasco Steak
Losh Kebabs (Armenian Grilled Meat Patties)

Serious Eats / Andrew Janjigian

While Armenian grilled meats are most associated with the skewered chunks of meats called shish kebab, Armenians are equally enamored with ground or minced meat patties cooked on the grill. These zingy, grilled beef (or lamb) patties are seasoned with onion, red bell pepper, parsley, tomato paste, allspice, and biber salçasi.

Losh Kebabs (Armenian Grilled Meat Patties)
Grilled Mojo-Marinated Skirt Steak

Serious Eats / Julia Hartbeck

Skirt steak is one of our favorite choices for grilling because it's relatively inexpensive and comes out rich and tender when cooked over a hot fire. The meat has a loose structure that's perfect for soaking up marinades, which in this recipe means a citrusy, mojo-style mixture of lime juice, orange juice, olive oil, garlic, cumin, salt, and pepper.

Grilled Mojo-Marinated Skirt Steak
The Best Carne Asada

J. Kenji López-Alt

You have a lot of options when it comes to making carne asada, but it should always be buttery and moist and have a great crust. Our recipe is flavored with a marinade of citrus juices, soy sauce, dried chiles, and chipotles in adobo. We soak the meat in the marinade for several hours before cooking it on a super hot grill.

The Best Carne Asada

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Barbecue Smoked Beef Chuck

J. Kenji López-Alt

Barbecuing beef chuck isn't as simple as sticking it in the smoker and letting it do its thing—the exterior of the meat dries out and becomes tough as nails. The solution is to wrap the chuck in a double layer of heavy-duty aluminum foil partway through the cooking process, which traps in moisture and keeps the beef tender from edge to edge.

Barbecue Smoked Beef Chuck
Sous Vide Smoked Brisket

J. Kenji López-Alt

Barbecue purists might want to move to the next recipe, because here we're making smoked brisket sous-vide style. We start by cooking the beef in a water bath for at least 24 hours (depending on the temperature), then we finish it on the smoker for a couple of hours to give it a smoky bark.

Sous Vide Smoked Brisket
Slow-Smoked Porterhouse Steaks

J. Kenji López-Alt

Fast-cooking cuts like steaks aren't generally good candidates for smoking, but with the right technique, it's possible to cook a porterhouse in a way that it ends up both smoky and medium-rare. To do it, take thick steaks, set them on their sides, and smoke them over a very low fire for a few hours. Once they hit about 115°F, take them off and finish them over a roaring flame.

Slow-Smoked Porterhouse Steaks
Dijon-Marinated Grilled Skirt Steak

Vicky Wasik

Dijon mustard, rosemary, and champagne vinegar come together to form an easy marinade that is also perfect for skirt steak. The acidity of the mustard combined with the vinegar helps tenderize the meat, and the marinade is salty enough to both season the steak and help it retain moisture on the grill.

Dijon-Marinated Grilled Skirt Steak

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Black Diamond-Style Steak Marinade

Serious Eats / Vicky Wasik

A good steak really needs nothing more than salt, pepper, and heat (and the pepper is optional), but when there's a parade of grilled beef coming off the grill, sometimes you want to mix it up. To that end, here's a marinade recipe from our editorial director, Daniel, that will work with any steak you want to toss on the fire: a dark and savory mix made up of soy sauce, Worcestershire, balsamic vinegar, and onion and garlic powders. If you want some other marinade options, we've got two more that are similarly versatile: one's a zippy combination of lemon zest, ginger, lemongrass, beer, and floral ground coriander; the other is an intriguingly bitter and buttery mix of coffee and chocolate, with a little bit of an added surprise from a hit of chile powder.

Black Diamond-Style Steak Marinade
Seekh Kebabs (Pakistani Spicy Grilled Ground Meat Skewers)

J. Kenji López-Alt

While we usually prefer to make Pakistani seekh kebabs with lamb, beef works, too, if you prefer something a little less gamy. We flavor the kebabs with a long list of spices and aromatics. Most of them are easy to find, but sour amchur powder might be tricky—citric acid powder, tamarind paste, or lime juice are the best replacements.

Seekh Kebabs (Pakistani Spicy Grilled Ground Meat Skewers)
Lomo al Trapo (Colombian-Style Cloth-Wrapped Grilled Beef Tenderloin)

J. Kenji López-Alt

Lomo al trapo is a wonderful dish for entertaining because it's remarkably simple but incredibly impressive. To make it, just wrap a beef tenderloin in salt and an inexpensive, clean kitchen towel and throw it onto hot coals. The towel will burn up and leave you with a juicy, flavorful tenderloin. The meat will keep cooking quite a bit after you take it off the coals, so pull it well before it reaches your desired level of doneness.

Lomo al Trapo (Colombian-Style Cloth-Wrapped Grilled Beef Tenderloin)
Argentinean-Style Grilled Short Ribs With Chimichurri

Joshua Bousel

If you see short ribs on an American menu, chances are they've been braised. In Argentina, though, short ribs are often destined for the grill. Because short ribs are so fatty, they're a pretty forgiving cut to work with—just make sure to cook them to at least medium-rare so that all of the intramuscular fat can start to melt. To complement the Argentinean technique, serve the beef with a classic Argentinean chimichurri.

Argentinean-Style Grilled Short Ribs With Chimichurri

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Grilled Stuffed Flank Steak With Scallions, Ginger, and Teriyaki Glaze

J. Kenji López-Alt

There's nothing wrong with a simple grilled flank steak, but to make it more impressive, try wrapping it up with scallions, ginger, and a teriyaki glaze before throwing it onto the grill.

Grilled Stuffed Flank Steak With Scallions, Ginger, and Teriyaki Glaze
Grilled Spinach- and Mushroom-Stuffed Beef Tenderloin

Joshua Bousel

Tenderloin is definitely tender, but it's also on the bland side compared to other cuts. We like to stuff it with other ingredients to add a little more flavor—in this case we go with mushrooms, shallots, and spinach. A reverse sear is the best way to cook a roast like this, so slowly bring the meat up to 120°F on the cool side of the grill before browning it on the hot side.

Grilled Spinach- and Mushroom-Stuffed Beef Tenderloin
Grilled Strip Steak With Creamy Yogurt Sauce and Tomato-Cucumber Salad

J. Kenji López-Alt

When you're grilling a steak, you need to make sure it's at least an inch and a half thick so that you can get a great crust before it overcooks. A New York strip that thick can easy serve two people, so only buy half as many steaks as you have guests. To balance out the meaty steak, serve it with a refreshing cucumber tomato salad and yogurt sauce.

Grilled Strip Steak With Creamy Yogurt Sauce and Tomato-Cucumber Salad
Grilled Jalapeño-Marinated Steak Sandwiches With Charred Onions and Cotija Mayo

Joshua Bousel

If a plated steak sounds too formal for a cookout, then how about a sandwich instead? This one is made with grilled hanger steak marinated with jalapeño and lime, served on toasted baguettes with charred onions, fresh cilantro, and cotija mayonnaise. Be extra careful to cut the meat against the grain so that it doesn't all come out of the sandwich at once when you take a bite.

Grilled Jalapeño-Marinated Steak Sandwiches With Charred Onions and Cotija Mayo

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Colombian-Style Barbecued Beef Ribs

J. Kenji López-Alt

Beef ribs aren't the most common cut, but if your butcher sells prime rib roast, then they should have some for you. This bargain piece of beef is great for smoking—a few hours on the grill and they'll be tender and smoky, with a great bark. In Colombia, they serve beef ribs with a side of ají, and we strongly suggest you do the same.

Colombian-Style Barbecued Beef Ribs
Barbecue Short Ribs

Serious Eats / Joshua Bousel

Short ribs are a perfectly rich and meaty cut for barbecuing. Plus, they're ready for the table in a fraction of the time it takes to smoke a brisket.

Barbecue Short Ribs

May 2019

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