Roy Choi's Carne Asada

Recipe from Roy Choi

Adapted by Sam Sifton

Updated June 24, 2026

  • Julia Gartland for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Spencer Richards.
Media 1 of 1
Total Time
30 minutes, plus marinating time
Rating
5(1,376)
Comments
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Roy Choi is the dharma bum of the Los Angeles food scene, a Zen lunatic bard of the city’s immigrant streets. He is a founder of Kogi BBQ, which used food trucks to introduce the city to Mexican mash-up cuisine, and the creative force behind a handful of Los Angeles restaurants that celebrate various iterations of big-flavor cooking at the intersection of skater, stoner, lowrider and Korean college-kid desire. He cooks poems, and they taste of Los Angeles. Choi's carne asada — grilled meat — might raise eyebrows in Puebla and Laredo alike. There is mirin in the marinade and a lot of garlic. But there is purity to its expression of urban Southern California. This is a recipe to expand minds, a delicious take on a venerable classic. —Sam Sifton

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Ingredients

Yield:Serves 6

  • 2 jalapeños

  • 1 medium tomato, cored and cut into quarters

  • 1 small yellow onion or ¼ large one, peeled and cut into quarters

  • 5 cloves garlic

  • 2 tablespoons white granulated sugar

  • ¼ cup ancho chili powder

  • 1 tablespoon ground black pepper

  • 1 tablespoon kosher salt

  • ½ large bunch cilantro, leaves and stems, well rinsed

  • ⅓ cup fresh-squeezed orange juice (about 1 orange)

  • 3 tablespoons fresh-squeezed lime juice (1 or 2 limes)

  • ¼ cup mirin

  • 1 12-ounce can (1 ½ cups) Budweiser or other lager beer

  • 2 pounds skirt steak, cut into 10-inch sections

  • 2 tablespoons olive oil

Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (6 servings)

15 grams carbs; 98 milligrams cholesterol; 429 calories; 13 grams monosaturated fat; 2 grams polyunsaturated fat; 8 grams saturated fat; 25 grams fat; 1 gram trans fat; 3 grams fiber; 692 milligrams sodium; 32 grams protein; 7 grams sugar

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Preheat the broiler. Place the jalapeños on a cookie sheet or in a skillet with an ovenproof handle, and put them under the broiler until their skins begin to blacken and bubble. (You can also do this by putting the peppers directly over a burner on your stove or on a gas grill.) Pull the stems and seeds from the jalapeños and discard them; skin the peppers and put them into a food processor.

  2. Step 2

    Add the tomato, onion, garlic, sugar, ancho chili powder, black pepper and salt to the bowl of the machine, and pulse to combine. Add the cilantro, the fruit juices, mirin and beer. Process again until smooth.

  3. Step 3

    Transfer the marinade to a large, nonreactive bowl and submerge the steak in it. Cover and place in refrigerator for at least four hours or overnight.

  4. Step 4

    Build a fire in your grill. If using a gas grill, turn all burners to high

  5. Step 5

    When all coals are covered with gray ash and the fire is hot (you can hold your hand 6 inches over the grill for only a few seconds), remove steaks from marinade, drizzle with olive oil and placeon the grill directly over the coals and cook until deeply seared, turning a few times, approximately 10 minutes for medium-rare. Remove steaks from the grill and allow to rest a few minutes. Slice against the grain into thin strips and serve with warm corn tortillas, pico de gallo (see recipe), grilled scallions, whatever you like.

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Ratings

5 out of 5
1,376 user ratings
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Comments

Geoff

Find a Mexican grocery, or even your local supermarket, and look for the bagged dehydrated peppers in the Mexican food section. Even in New Jersey, we have Guajillo, Ancho and a bunch of other ones. Get the Anchos. Put one or two into a Pyrex cup and pour boiling water over it, let it sit for 10 minutes and then remove the seeds and membrane if you don't want all the heat. Throw this into the food processor and it beats Ancho chile powder hands down.

Jack Wells

In California this dish is often made with pork instead of beef. I would highly recommend swapping the skirt steak for pork tenderloin.

Jim Bullard

Carne Asada is always made with steak meat, 99.9% of the time it is flap meat, perfect for a taco, nice marbling, cooks fast. You can either chop it up ot just slice it, add onions mixes with cilantro limes and salsa, not hot sauce but salsa With Pork it is a Carnitas Taco, not a Carne Asada Taco, Carne Means Meat, asada is to grill, roast . Some people like to marinate the meat with oranges, limes or lemons or both

Kim

This was the first time I used a skirt steak and even with several hours in the marinade, it was tough. Maybe it was a bad cut (?). I would use flank steak instead next time and perhaps a different marinade. Also be prepared to spend a lot of time. I prefer recipes that are delicious but don’t require a half of a day to prep.

mary

Excellent - try tip re: dried chilis!

GD

I noticed more than a few comments regarding the addition of mirin. The description already mentions it as an "impurity" and nowhere is the recipe called "authentic". So, try it and enjoy. The beauty of any recipe is in variation. Make one tweak and suddenly it's your best version, and then I'll turn to the Mrs. and say "well, enjoy it, I probably can't recreate it again".

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Credits

Adapted from Roy Choi, Riding Shotgun, Los Angeles.

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