Mexican Steak Bowl Recipe

For big Mexican flavor combined with delicious steak, this Mexican steak bowl is a go-to in our household!

A combination of tender seared steak with a tomato, onion, and pepper sauce served over a bowl of rice is completely delicious and easy to make on the stovetop. This is a terrific way to enjoy steak without having to buy a steak for each person and a great way to shake up your Taco Tuesday meal rotation.

You can watch the quick video to see a step-by-step walkthrough on how to make your own Mexican steak bowl, read these questions to learn more about our Mexican steak bowl recipe and how you can customize it for yourself, or just scroll down to the ingredients and start cooking!

Why did you use steak as an ingredient and not just drop it in the middle of a plate?

We’re a butcher shop, and we love a classic dinner with a steak in the middle of the plate and a baked potato on the side, but we also enjoy recipes like this Mexican Steak Bowl that use steak as an ingredient. The 1960’s are long gone and it’s time to look at steak as an ingredient that can be used in many ways.

Here are the three big reasons we enjoy

1. By using steak as an ingredient, you can make a single steak go further and feed more people. This is great for your wallet and works for many diets.
2. Recipes like this Mexican Steak Bowl bring even more flavor to the steak than what you would normally expect from a simple grilled steak.
3. The steaks we used were end-cut steaks and they wouldn’t look super pretty on a plate, so cutting them up into a recipe is a great way to use discounted end-cut steaks or a less tender steak that cost less money.

What type of meat do use to make this Mexican steak bowl recipe?

We used New York Strip steaks from Lake Geneva Country Meats for the pictures and video in this recipe. These particular steaks were smaller-sized end-cuts, which was part of the reason we wanted to use them in this recipe.

We think New York Strip steaks are a great choice of meat for protein bowl type of meals like this Mexican steak bowl because they are lean, tender, and flavorful without costing as much as ribeye steaks or tenderloin filets. However, you can also use other beef cuts for this recipe.

These other cuts of beef will cook almost exactly the same as the New York Strip in this recipe and could be used in its place. Here are four suggestions with notes on what makes them different than a New York Strip steak:

• Top Butt steaks – top butt steaks come from the beef sirloin. They’re a little less tender than New York strips, but have great flavor and are a more affordable cut of steak that would work well in a Mexican steak bowl.
• Flat Iron steaks – these are a hard-to-find cut of steak that come from the chuck. They have big flavor and are quite tender while remaining very affordable. They’d be an excellent pick for this recipe!
• Stew meat – you could turn this Mexican Steak Bowl into a Mexican Beef Stew by substituting stew meat. It won’t be very tender compared to the steak, but it is much more affordable and will get more tender the longer you cook it.
• Ground beef – while this isn’t a steak, ground beef would be delicious in this recipe and it’s very economical. Just remember to drain any grease from the ground beef after you brown it and before you add it to the tomato sauce.

How did you season this recipe? Is it spicy?

We wrote this Mexican steak bowl to be not spicy, but you can make it spicy if you like. Here’s the rundown on how we seasoned this recipe and how you can tweak it:

• We seasoned our steaks with just salt and pepper, it’s simple but tasty.
• If you want a spicer steak, try using an Ancho Chili & Coffee Rub if you like. Here’s a sponsored link to buy a terrific one from Amazon!
• We seasoned the onions and peppers with salt and pepper as they cooked, and then added taco seasoning after we added tomatoes.
• We make our own taco seasoning at home using this recipe that is not spicy, just a lovely burst of Mexican flavor.
• If you want to spice up the sauce, try adding a dash of cayenne pepper along with the taco seasoning or you could add a dried chile pepper to the tomatoes for spice and flavor!

Are there any other tweaks I can make to this recipe?

One of the things that we really love about “bowl” recipes like these Mexican steak bowls is that it’s really easy to sub ingredients in and out, depending on your individual tastes.

You can take out any ingredient in this recipe that you don’t like, or you can try adding these suggested extras:

• Rinsed & drained black beans could be added at the same time as the corn. This was a request in our household and we will add them to our Mexican steak bowl!
• Drained hominy could be added at the same time as the corn to give this dish a pozole-esque feel. If you’re not sure what this is, hominy is a dried corn kernel that is typical in many traditional Mexican recipes.
• We enjoy diced and sauteed sweet potatoes in many Mexican recipes and adding a large sweet potato to this dish would add texture and flavor.
• For a bit more crunch, try adding 1 -2 cups of shredded cabbage right before you serve the meal. This is another nod to pozole and is very yummy!

How do you serve these Mexican steak bowls?

We served our Mexican steak bowl over warm rice and garnished the meal with fresh lime juice, plus sprinkles of cotija cheese, and freshly chopped cilantro.

This mixture could also be served in a tortilla for a fajita filling, served on top of chips for a steak nacho dish, or eaten plain without any carbs if you’re trying to cut out carbs.

You can also add more toppings to your Mexican steak bowl like:

• Shredded cheddar cheese
• Guacamole
• Salsa
• Sour cream
• Tortilla strips

We really liked this recipe – do you have any more to suggest?

We’re so glad you like our Mexican steak bowls! Here are a few more bowl recipes with similar aspects that you may want to try:

• If you like eating steak with more things on the side, try this Greek steak bowl recipe.
• If it’s the Mexican flavor you like, try these Southwestern chicken bowl or Southwestern pork bowl recipes.
• And finally, if you want a one-pot Mexican beef dish, try this Mexican Ground Beef skillet recipe!

That’s all we have to about our Mexican steak bowl recipe – we hope we answered any questions you may have had! If you have feedback or more questions, leave us a comment below. Otherwise, enjoy this recipe, and we look forward to seeing you soon at Lake Geneva Country Meats!