Thai-Style Sliced-Beef Lettuce Wraps

Mmmmm. This is delicious. The recipe advises marinating skirt steak from 30 minutes to overnight. I marinated it for 4 hours, which was enough for the flavor to permeate the meat, although I’m thinking 30 minutes may not be enough.

The recipe calls for 2 tablespoons tamarind paste, barbecue sauce, or hoisin sauce—this is quite a variety of possible flavor outcomes. I used tamarind. I like that the recipe also requires orange juice and zest, which is a welcome addition to the cilantro, soy sauce, ginger, lime, scallions, garlic, honey, and chile.

Rather than use a skillet, we grilled the meat. We also added a touch of Thai chile vinegar sauce for a different flavor to a couple of the wraps. This made a delicious and satisfying summer dinner and among the better Thai wraps that we’ve had.

We often look for recipes that have a high “work to output” ratio – meaning we get a lot of bang for the buck with prep time, cook time, and honestly eating time. This recipe has all three: Short prep time, short cook time, and long eating time!

We chose to grill the steak rather than pan-sear it, simply because we like that flavor – and it was 100% worth it. The steak was melt-in-your-mouth tender and extremely flavorful. The sauce was a wonderful addition to the wraps, and also wonderfully flavored – the lime juice/orange juice combo was one we hadn’t used before, and all of us loved it.

If someone were to look over my repertoire of kitchen goodies, they’d know I’m a huge fan of Thai food and flavors. I’m also trying to be healthy, avoiding carbs, and upping my fiber. So this recipe, with lots of uncooked veggies, was right in my wheelhouse. Plus, on a scale with easy on one side and yummy on the other, it was perfectly balanced!

This is one of those amazing recipes to do when you have friends over as most of the work was done prior to guests arriving, this way you actually enjoy them instead of being in the kitchen. Prior to starting to grill the meat, I placed the lettuce cups, peppers, carrots, and cilantro in bowls at the center of the table which makes it look beautiful.

I decided to start dinner with LC Tom Yum Goong Soup which is always a HUGE hit. While we were eating the tom yum, I grilled the meat and let it stand until I sliced it super thin. I decided to warm the marinate prior to serving it as well. After placing the meat on the table, all started serving and creating their own lettuce cups. What I noticed is that each would have had more of one or the other, which made me realize that next time I do it as self-service and not have the plates all ready. I will cut more pepper and carrots to make sure there is enough for all if they decide to take more (if leftovers, we can always add them to a salad next time).

Well, let me tell you, the wows were unanimous. All loved it, especially that marinade which was the highlight of this recipe. Any novice in the kitchen can create this recipe as it is super easy to make and will shock their family or guests with the quality of the meal, as it screams fancy, exotic, flavorful, and chic. The meat came out tender and juicy. This is a full redo recipe, especially if one wants to impress the crowd.

I was drawn to this recipe because of the wonderful Thai marinade and my love of Skirt Steak. It also seemed healthy and fun to eat. Skirt Steak has such great flavor, and the marinade was delicious. It was a little messy to eat, so I passed around extra napkins, and I found that using two lettuce leaves made eating a bit more manageable. It was a big hit!