A Bavette steak with sazon seasoning and fresh pico de gallo is a fantastic summer meal. Make this recipe with a cut of sirloin flap on your grill- it only takes 10 minutes to cook!

Summertime is about enjoying the great outdoors. For some, that includes cooking fantastic food to share and enjoy with family or friends. 

If I’m doing the cooking, chances are good that the food will be grilled or smoked. I like to make grilled salmon or chicken, Jamaican jerk pork ribs, and of course, steak!  

Whether it’s to make grilled ribeye, bacon wrapped filet mignon, or something else, don’t let the summer slip by without firing up the grill for the best meal ever!

What cut of meat is Bavette steak?

Bavette (a French word meaning bib) refers to any flat cut of beef or pork. Most often, it’s a flap, flank, flat iron, or skirt steak.

In France, sirloin flap meat is known as bavette d’aloyau, which translates to the bib of the sirloin.

Cooking Methods

Due to its thin size, a Bavette steak is good for high heat, quick cooking preparations like grilling and broiling. I think a grill works best, either outdoors or a stovetop grill pan.

For this recipe, I use a cut of sirloin flap, cooking the steak on the grill to medium-rare.

Tenderizing a sirloin flap

Not all cuts of beef need to be tenderized, but flap meat does. I use a dry rub of sazon seasoning for this recipe. However, if you’d like to use the sirloin flap for steak fajitas, a dry fajita seasoning works well.

For dishes like carne asada, you don’t need much dry seasoning. This is because the beef is tenderized with a wet carne asada marinade.

Marinating Instructions

1. Rub sazon seasoning onto both sides of the meat, then place it on a plate or sheet pan and cover it with plastic wrap.
   
2. Refrigerate the plate of meat on the bottom shelf to prevent any meat juices from leaking onto nearby food. Allow the meat to marinate for at least 20 minutes. If you’d like to do this step ahead, it will be fine in the fridge for up to 12 hours.

Cooking Bavette Steak on the Grill

How long to cook a Bavette steak depends on the cut of meat you use. Flank and skirt are relatively lean cuts, so they can be cooked a bit longer than cuts like a sirloin flap.

For flap meat, I recommend cooking to rare or medium-rare, as it tends to be a little chewy otherwise.

Medium-rare steak on the grill preheated to 450°F. typically requires 5 to 6 minutes per side.

Grilling Instructions

1. For a gas or charcoal grill, set it to preheat to 450°F. If you’ll be using an indoor grill pan, set it to preheat over high heat for about 5 minutes. The pan needs to be smoking hot, as you want the steak to cook as quickly as possible.
   
2. Allow the meat to rest. After cooking steak on the grill, be sure to allow the meat to rest for about 10 minutes. This way, the juices can redistribute into the meat rather than running out onto the plate.

Slicing and Serving

As mentioned earlier, Bavette steak is a long, flat piece of meat. For serving, it’s best to cut the meat into three or four pieces first, slicing with the grain. Then, rotate each of those pieces 90° and cut thin slices against the grain.

The grain is easy to see; it’s the natural lines that run through the meat.

I have some other serving suggestions below, but definitely consider serving this meal with a side of Mexican charro beans or Tex-Mex style slow cooker cowboy beans, and a hasselback potato. For a change from traditional mayo-based sides, go with something healthier, like this delicious barley salad.

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