Chipotle Lime Steak | Cinco de Mayo

 

One of my favorite holidays is Cinco de Mayo, and I’ll admit shamelessly that it’s all for the food. This year for our Cinco de Mayo feast, the star of the show will be this Chipotle Lime Steak for tacos or burritos. I concocted it for a trial run this weekend, and it was awesome!

Chipotle Lime Steak

I. Love. Mexican food.  It’s by far my favorite ethnic food choice, hands down.  I usually host a little get-together every year for Cinco de Mayo, and prepare a Mexican feast for friends and family.  Our nephew A.R. has pretty much held me to it every year for at least 5 years now, because he swears I’m the best American Mexican cook he knows.  I can’t let A.R. down, so I decided to do a little trial run of this years menu on Friday night. The trial run was awesome!

My Cinco de Mayo Plan for ’16

In past years, I’ve prepared everything from simple ground beef tacos to a delicious tequila lime grilled chicken taco bar.  I always…and I mean always…make a big bowl of homemade salsa.  It’s the staple.  That’s on the menu again this year, of course, but I wanted to change it up again and make something a little different.  I ended up making this salsa that I found on one of my favorite blog hops.  It’s from Home Cooking Memories,  and it turned out perfectly.  This is one that I’ll be making again and again!  Although, I can’t wait for home-grown summer tomatoes…fresh ones make all the difference! Here’s some I made last year.

Made with homegrown red and yellow tomatoes...yum!

Made with homegrown red and yellow tomatoes…yum!

Chipotle Lime Steak

I came up with this chipotle lime marinade for steak that I think is going to be a huge hit!  I already had the chipotle peppers in adobo for the salsa, so I combined a couple of those with fresh cilantro, lime juice and my favorite hot sauce, and a few other things.  I think I knocked it out of the park on this Chipotle Lime Steak! I definitely splattered it all over my stove!

Chipotle Lime Steak

My trusty blender helped me out with this recipe so much.  I just chopped, dumped and blended all my tasty ingredients, then poured it over my top sirloin steaks to marinade for several hours. The cast iron skillet put a wonderful char on the steak, and the high cooking temperature yielded excellent results for this dish.  As you can see, I cut my steak into bite-sized pieces for burritos, but it would also be great to marinate the whole steaks and then grill them for tacos.  Yum! This Chipotle Lime Steak is going to be a staple for cooking Mexican food at home! Click here for the printable recipe!——>Chipotle Lime Marinade<—-

The Rest of the Feast

I even threw together a couple of pans of enchiladas, because Pooh is a huge fan.  She always orders the enchiladas supreme when we go to our favorite Mexican restaurant, and claims that her favorites are the bean and cheese and the plain cheese (she also gets a beef one and a chicken one with this dish).  I simply softened some corn tortillas in the microwave under a damp paper towel, filled them with shredded pepper jack and refried beans, and topped them with canned enchilada sauce.

Cinco de Mayo: bean enchiladas

I baked the pans at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes, and they came out ooey, gooey, and delicious!  I topped the pan of bean enchiladas with a little shredded cheddar, but left the cheese ones plain.  That was probably the easiest Mexican dish I’ve ever made, and it was really good.  I’m sure I’ll be doing that again on a busy weeknight sometime soon!

homemade guacamole

I know I’ll make some homemade guacamole for my Cinco de Mayo party.  I mash avocados, add a couple of seeded and chopped jalapeno peppers, some chopped green onion, fresh chopped cilantro, and the juice of one lime.  The lime helps keep the avocados from turning, but a tip that works even better is to poke a couple of your avocado pits into the guacamole.  It stays nice and bright green for much longer this way!  You can throw in some minced garlic if you like it, and I always season with salt and pepper.

Margaritas are a must for your Cinco de Mayo Feast!

Ok, now the truth really comes out.  I celebrate Cinco de Mayo for the margaritas.

Here’s my favorite margarita recipe.  They’re perfect, just so ya know.

Cinco de Mayo Feast

Cinco de Mayo Feast

Are you having a Cinco de Mayo feast?  Do you have friends and family over to nosh with you?  If so, I hope you’ll try out some of these simple and delicious Mexican recipes on your guests, especially the Chipotle Lime Steak!  And if you’re a margarita lover, feel free to share your favorite margarita recipe with me!  I’m super-excited about May 5th this year, and I’m already armed with a delicious meal plan!  Y’all come!

 

X,O,X,O,   Martie

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