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A salad fit for a meal! This loaded fajita steak salad features juicy, perfectly-cooked steak; sautéed, Fajita-style veggies; and an easy, citrusy dressing, all served over a bed of crisp romaine lettuce. It’s a quick and easy meal you can throw together in roughly half an hour, perfect for a family dinner or a evening of entertaining!
Before You Get Started
- Your steak will cook more evenly if you take it out of the fridge about 20-30 minutes before searing it. It’ll also brown better and faster, because you aren’t wasting the pan’s energy to take the chill off of the steak.
- Wait until the skillet is literally smoking hot before adding the steak.
How to Make This Recipe
See recipe card below for full list of measurements, ingredients, and instructions.
Make the Dressing
Add all the dressing ingredients to a small bowl and whisk them together until they’re completely emulsified. You can use a hand mixer if you’d rather, or even an immersion blender!
Season the steak
Warm a large cast-iron skillet on the stovetop over high heat for about 10 minutes or until it starts to smoke just a little. While the pan’s warming up, cover the flank steak with generous amounts of cumin, sweet paprika, salt, and pepper, making sure to season both sides really well.
Cook the Steak
Once the pan’s hot, lay the flank steak in the skillet completely flat. Let it sear for about 4 minutes without touching it – you want it to develop a really deep golden-brown crust on the underside. Once that’s happened, flip it over and sear the other side until the internal temperature of the steak hits your target temp based on your preferred doneness.
Internal Temperature Guidelines
To cook your steak to your desired temperature, follow this chart:
- Rare – Target temperature: 120°-125°F. Remove from skillet when internal temperature reaches 110º F.
- Medium Rare – Target temperature: 130°-135°F. Remove from skillet when internal temperature reaches 120º F.
- Medium – Target temperature: 140°-145°F. Remove from skillet when internal temperature reaches 130º F.
- Medium Well – Target temperature: 150°-155°F. Remove from skillet when internal temperature reaches 140º F.
- Well Done – Target temperature: 160°-175°F. Remove from skillet when internal temperature reaches 160º F.
Cheryl’s Tip: When you hit your target temp, move the steak over to a cutting board and cover it loosely with aluminum foil. It needs to rest for about 10 minutes until you slice it, to give the juices time to settle. It’ll also finish cooking during that time, so you really can’t skip this step!!
Sauté the Veggies
Reduce the heat under the skillet to medium and let the pan cool a little so you don’t burn the oil or the vegetables. Once it’s cooled down slightly, add the oil and warm it until it’s hot and shimmery, then add the sliced vegetables, salt, and pepper. Sauté everything, stirring occasionally, 8 to 10 minutes or until the veggies have softened and just started to char around the edges.
Assemble the Salad
Arrange a bed of romaine lettuce on a serving platter (or even on a rimmed baking sheet!). Top the lettuce with sautéed veggies and any other ingredients you like – sliced avocado, halved tomatoes, tortilla strips, roasted corn, whatever! Slice the steak and lay it on top of the salad, then drizzle the dressing over everything and serve!
Cheryl’s Tip: Make sure to slice your steak against the grain, otherwise you’ll end up with tough, chewy pieces of meat.
What I Love About This Recipe
- This Whole30 Fajita Salad recipe comes together in only 30 minutes, making it the perfect healthy dinner for weekdays.
- Both salad dressing and steak are seasoned with a Mexican spice blend featuring chilli powder and cumin, to really put the fajita in this salad recipe.
- Get all the flavours of Mexican restaurant fare minus all those calories from tortillas, cheese and sour cream.
Recipe Variations
- Seasoning Options: If you don’t have cumin or sweet paprika on hand, you can season your steak with taco seasoning instead!
- Protein Options: Not in the mood for steak? Chicken works really well. You’ll just need to adjust the cooking times!
Making changes to a recipe can result in recipe failure. Any substitutions or variations listed are simple changes that I believe will work in this recipe, but results are not guaranteed.
Fajita Steak Salad
Equipment
- small mixing bowl
- whisk
- 2 cutting boards or one board cleaned during cooking
- Large cast-iron skillet 10-inch or 12-inch
- Tongs
- internal meat thermometer
- Aluminum Foil
- Sharp chef's knife
- large serving platter
Ingredients
For the Fajita Salad Dressing
- ½ cup olive oil
- ⅓ cup freshly squeezed lime juice juice of 2 large limes
- 1 teaspoon ground cumin
- ½ teaspoon chili powder
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt more or less to taste
- 1 pinch cayenne pepper more or less to taste
For the Steak
- 1 pound flank steak or skirt steak
- ½ teaspoon ground cumin
- ½ teaspoon sweet paprika
- kosher salt to taste
- freshly ground black pepper to taste
For the Fajita Veggies
- 1 ½ tablespoons olive oil
- 1 small red onion thinly sliced, approximately 4 ounces
- 2 medium bell peppers red or orange, thinly sliced; approximately 6 ounces each
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt more or less to taste
- ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper more or less to taste
For the Salad
- 8 ounces chopped romaine lettuce approximately 1 medium romaine lettuce heart
- 2 cups grape tomatoes or cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1 medium avocado sliced
Instructions
For the Dressing
- Add ½ cup olive oil, ⅓ cup freshly squeezed lime juice, 1 teaspoon ground cumin, ½ teaspoon chili powder, ½ teaspoon kosher salt, and 1 pinch cayenne pepper to small mixing bowl.
- Whisk ingredients together vigorously until fully emulsified. Set bowl aside.
For the Steak
- Place cast-iron skillet on stovetop over high heat. Warm skillet for 10 minutes or until skillet begins to smoke slightly.
- While skillet warms, place 1 pound flank steak on plate or cutting board. Season flank steak with ½ teaspoon ground cumin, ½ teaspoon sweet paprika, kosher salt, and freshly ground black pepper, making sure to season both sides of flank steak evenly.
- When skillet begins to smoke, place seasoned flank steak in skillet, laying steak completely flat. Cook steak, undisturbed, approximately 4 minutes or until bottom of steak develops rich, golden-brown crust.
- Once crust develops, flip steak over. Cook steak approximately 2 minutes, then insert internal meat thermometer and check temperature of steak.
- Continue cooking steak until thermometer reaches desired temperature (see Notes below). Note: if cooking steak longer than 4 minutes, flip steak every 2 minutes to prevent burning.
- Once desired internal temperature is reached, transfer steak to clean cutting board. Cover steak loosely with aluminum foil and allow steak to rest 10 minutes.
For the Fajita Veggies
- While steak rests, return skillet to stovetop and reduce heat to medium. Let skillet cool slightly, then add 1 ½ tablespoons olive oil. Heat skillet until oil is hot and shimmery.
- When oil is hot, add slices of 1 small red onion, slices of 2 medium bell peppers, ½ teaspoon kosher salt, and ¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper to pan. Stir to incorporate.
- Sauté vegetables, stirring occasionally, approximately 8 minutes or until softened and lightly charred around edges.
- Remove skillet from heat and set aside.
For the Salad
- Arrange 8 ounces chopped romaine lettuce on large serving platter.
- Add sautéed peppers and onions, 2 cups grape tomatoes, and slices of 1 medium avocado to platter, arranging ingredients as desired.
- Remove aluminum foil from steak and discard. Carve steak into thin slices, making sure to slice perpendicular to grain of meat.
- Lay slices of steak on top of salad. Drizzle prepared dressing over salad and serve warm.
- Storage: Undressed leftovers can be refrigerated in an airtight container up to 3 days. Refrigerate dressing in a separate airtight container.
Internal Temperature Guidelines
To cook your steak to your desired temperature, follow this chart:- Rare: Target temperature: 120°-125°F. Remove from skillet when internal temperature reaches 110º F.
- Medium Rare: Target temperature: 130°-135°F. Remove from skillet when internal temperature reaches 120º F.
- Medium: Target temperature: 140°-145°F. Remove from skillet when internal temperature reaches 130º F.
- Medium Well: Target temperature: 150°-155°F. Remove from skillet when internal temperature reaches 140º F.
- Well Done: Target temperature: 160°-175°F. Remove from skillet when internal temperature reaches 160º F.
Approximate Information for One Serving
Nutrition Disclaimers
Number of total servings shown is approximate. Actual number of servings will depend on your preferred portion sizes.
Nutritional values shown are general guidelines and reflect information for 1 serving using the ingredients listed, not including any optional ingredients. Actual macros may vary slightly depending on specific brands and types of ingredients used.
To determine the weight of one serving, prepare the recipe as instructed. Weigh the finished recipe, then divide the weight of the finished recipe (not including the weight of the container the food is in) by the desired number of servings. Result will be the weight of one serving.
Did You Make This Recipe?
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I made this today. Man this is good eating. I had a 5 lb side of striploin, cut 1 lb off it, trimmed some of the fat, and followed the recipe exactly. I am lookin forward to eating this again. This is clean eatin’. Lots of flavour! Thank you!
So glad you enjoyed it, Andre! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
I have to honestly say that this is one of the tastiest salads I have ever eaten. I cut it down in half so it made two portions. One for my supper tonight, and the other is for my lunch tomorrow. I’m going to share this with everyone I know. So satisfying with a taste that is out of this world. If only it could be a dish served at restaurants so it could be my go-to meal. Way to go!!!
Aw, thanks for the great review! It’s one of my faves, too!
Are the calories listed per serving?