Sweet and Salty Grilled Steak With Cucumber Salad Recipe (2024)

I figured the longer I marinate, the better. Wrong. I marinated the beef for 24 hours. We grilled it as suggested but it was disappointingly tough. We figured that the lime "cooked" the beef. Strongly recommend marinating for much shorter time -- maybe an hour or two.

The photo looks like the meat was sliced more or less with the grain instead of across it. Flank steak should be thinly sliced straight across the grain to be edible. I usually use some finely grated fresh ginger in the marinade to help tenderize the meat.

I added some ginger and sesame oil to the marinade and thought it was better.

I think the salad would have been fresher tasting with a rice wine vinegar-based dressing.

I cut back to 1/3 cup fish sauce and used only a few tbsp of marinade as a flavoring on the salad, using primarily rice wine vinegar and olive oil. The cucumber salad had cherry tomatoes as well as a lettuce base and was served on top of rice noodles in a bowl with flank steak on top. Really yummy!

So, the reason why nearly every commenter thinks this recipe is "too salty"--is because it is a "variation" of nuoc cham. A traditional nuoc cham also has water added. Try adding water at a 3:1 ratio (water to fish sauce), and this will yield the dressing you want for your salad. I'd keep the marinade as is though, as water would only impede the action of the salt and other flavors, and you'll have a bland steak. Lastly, please don't reserve the used marinade for dipping. (That's unsanitary.)

Based on the notes of a few other commenters, I adjusted the recipe slightly, adding only 1/3 c. fish sauce, 3 1/2 tbsp brown sugar and a splash of both sesame oil and rice vinegar. It tasted divine, and I will definitely make it again.

I come at this from the Thai side with Neua Num Doke in which the thinly sliced meat is quickly seared in a hot dry wok to give charred rare-ish meat which is then marinated briefly in a similar sauce but with far less sugar. Serve over mixed salad dressed in the same sauce. Eat meat and salad with steamed rice. If you are grilling or want rare meat, grill the steak, slice thinly and dump into the marinade for a little while. Heap onto a salad on a plate letting the juice run over everything.

My whole family loved this dish. My son asked if we had enough for leftovers. I added a tablespoon of ginger and some sesame oil to the marinade as suggested in comments, and marinated it for about 6 hours. I served it with risotto with mushrooms and - random combination, but really good. Next time, I will serve with some warmed tortillas for the kids.

Maybe the limes I had were juicier or tarter, but I found that adding appro. 1 1/2 more tsp. brown sugar made the taste more balanced.

I normally love Melissa Clark's recipes but this one just isn't in the same league as most of hers & I've now made it twice, painstakingly following all the directions. The marinade, which is the key player here in pulling everything together, just didn't make the grade. Maybe too sour - not sure but it didn't have that drink it straight from the bowl deliciousness that I associate with a good marinade/dipping sauce/ salad dressing. Also thought proportion of radishes to cucumbers was off.

Another use for the leftover marinade is as a sauce for spiralized carrots and daikon radish - you can add tofu and a few herbs and you've got lunch the next day!

I used a flatiron steak and marinated overnight. Followed the dressing recipe but cut the fish sauce almost in half (Red Boat). Broiled flatiron steak sliced and served over mixed baby greens with the advised cucumbers and a bit of cilantro and dressed with reserved marinade. Super delicious.

Yes. It totally works. Cook in the marinade @ 129, towel off, then sear.

While the flavors are good, I agree with others that this came out a little saltier than I'd like. I added low sodium soy sauce, lime juice and rice vinegar to the marinade, will adjust the ratios and maybe cut the marinating time in half next time.

Has anyone tried this sous vide? I live in a downtown loft so we don't have a great vent fan and aren't allowed to bar-b-que on our balconies due to the fire code. I'm thinking to sous vide and sear on the stove top.

I used a flatiron steak and marinated overnight. Followed the dressing recipe but cut the fish sauce almost in half (Red Boat). Broiled flatiron steak sliced and served over mixed baby greens with the advised cucumbers and a bit of cilantro and dressed with reserved marinade. Super delicious.

I used this marinade with leftover eye of round roast, which I sliced into strips, marinated overnight, tossed with pad Thai rice noodles, cucumbers and radishes and served it colder than revenge. Since the roast was cooked, the marinade could be used as the dressing. It was great, but I agree with the comment that it didn’t need to be marinated overnight, as the more time it spent with the jalapeños (I did include a number of seeds) it got a lot spicier.

The salad tasted good, but the fish sauce lingered for a while. The meat was too chewy even though I have full real strong teeth.

Meat was tough after marinating for 6 hrs in fridge. Marinade just ok. Do not make again.

Made marinade exactly as specified, added all of it to the flank steak (1.8lbs) as half didn’t seem enough and I didn’t make the cucumber salad. Marinaded for 24 hours. Came out perfect on the grill, loved it.

Grilled 1-3/4 pound flank last night and I and my wife and son enjoyed the final result. The only adjustment to the recipe I made was to add a couple tablespoons of soy sauce to the marinade. Marinated for over 20 hours in fridge before grilling. Rice noodles sautéed with peanut sauce and 2 scrambled eggs however tended to stick together. Next time I would probably tenderize the steak and will add some vegetable oil to the boiled water. Otherwise a fun dish and pretty easy to prepare.

So, the reason why nearly every commenter thinks this recipe is "too salty"--is because it is a "variation" of nuoc cham. A traditional nuoc cham also has water added. Try adding water at a 3:1 ratio (water to fish sauce), and this will yield the dressing you want for your salad. I'd keep the marinade as is though, as water would only impede the action of the salt and other flavors, and you'll have a bland steak. Lastly, please don't reserve the used marinade for dipping. (That's unsanitary.)

My partner is iffy about fish sauce so I reduced it by 1/3 and compensated with soy sauce. Then his mom dropped by and he ended up having to take her out for dinner and I enjoyed it alone, immensly

Juice of 3 lemons used...maybe more next time?

My family loved this and it was incredibly easy to make. I swapped kaffir lime zest for the store bought limes and Thai scud peppers for the jalapeno and it lifted things up a notch. I also used slightly less than a 1/2 cup of the fish sauce and a bit more sugar and added ginger to the marinade and grape tomatoes to the salad. Make sure to taste the marinade and adjust sugar as needed. It may be hard to find whole kaffir limes in the store but if you can, it adds a ton of flavor and aroma.

I've done this at least twice now with rice and rice noodles. Either way it received rave reviews here. Followed the recipe and marinated overnight; grilled to medium rare. Cucumber salad added additional layers of flavor that went well with the meat. A keeper and do again...and again...!

I have tried this recipe twice and it was the first time I was really disappointed with Melissa Clark. It' incredibly salty! There is not enough balance in this dish. There are tons of other great ways to marinate a steak compared to this one. Really disappointing.

Didn't love this. There was a flavor that was too overpowering for me, maybe it was the fish sauce. I did like the contrast of the cucumber and radish salad with the steak. I may try that again with a slightly different sauce.