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During quarantine cooking, I experimented a lot with new flavors, and one of the results was this delicious Seven Spice Beef Salad recipe. If you’ve never used a Lebanese Seven Spice blend before, that’s okay! I hadn’t either until coronavirus quarantine when I stopped going out to restaurants and decided to try new ingredients in my cooking. I found that I really enjoyed the flavors of the Middle East and this recipe uses a common seasoning blend from Lebanon to make a richly seasoned beef that’s delicious on a fresh salad.
The key to this Seven Spice Beef Salad recipe is seasoning a beef tri tip steak generously with Lebanese Seven Spice. Sometimes known as Baharat, and very similar to shawarma, this seasoning is a traditional blend that varies from formulation to formulation, but contains 7 spices (shocking, I know), that bring equal hints of savory, sweet, and spice to your food in an aromatic spice blend. Common spices included in the blend are cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, allspice, cloves, and pepper. You can find plenty of recipes to make your own at home, or use this affiliate link to buy a commercial version on Amazon.
Seven spices is used to season everything from grilled beef, lamb, chicken, and seafood to roasted vegetables, soups, and even rice. The combination of spices helps to build complex flavors in your food without having to use salt or MSG. It’s a favorite in our household and we often use it to season a simple vinaigrette dressing!
For our Seven Spice Beef salad, we used Tri Tip steaks. We like the combination of flavor and tenderness in the tri tip steak, and for this recipe, the fact that it slices so easily is perfect! Top butt would also be a good choice for this recipe, if you prefer. It’s important to cook these tri tips correctly; they’re a bit too thick to just be quickly seared on each side, instead, we recommend a two step or two zone cooking method where you start cooking the meat over indirect heat to bring it up to temperature, then a final sear over high heat to finish the steak. If you want to cook a Tri Tip low and slow, check out our Smoked Chimichurri Tri Tip Steak recipe!
You could serve this sliced beef with roasted veggies, but then it wouldn’t be a seven spice beef salad, would it? For the salad part of this recipe, I combined chopped romaine, cherry tomatoes, quick pickled red onion, and diced cucumber and tossed it in a balsamic dressing. The fresh salad was a great contrast to the richness of the beef. You can customize the salad to your own taste by adding or subtracting ingredients such as feta cheese, chickpeas, olives, and more. If you really like Middle Eastern cuisine, a tahini dressing would be great on top of the salad instead of balsamic!
If you’re looking for a new salad recipe to switch up your normal “grilled chicken on lettuce” routine, we really hope you try this Middle Eastern inspired Seven Spice Beef Salad recipe! If you’ve never tired a Seven Spice blend before, let us know if this recipe inspired you to give it a try and what you think of the flavor. We appreciate your feedback and hope you enjoy this recipe I discovered during the craziness of lockdown! Cheers – Nick.
Generously season your tri tip steak on all sides with the seven spice blend. Let the steak rest at room temperature while you prepare your grill.
Heat your grill to 425ºF with a two zone set up where one side of the grill has burners on (or coals if you’re using charcoal) and the other has no heat. Once the grill is hot, pat the steak dry and put the meat over the indirect heat side and cook for 15 minutes, flipping halfway through the cooking time.
After 15 minutes of indirect heat cooking, move the steak to the direct heat side and sear for about 4 minutes per side, until the meat reaches 130ºF for medium rare or 140ºF for medium. We do not recommend cooking this steak beyond medium doneness.
While your steak is cooking, prepare the salad by combining the chopped lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber, and quick pickled red onions (click here for recipe) and toss. Dress with balsamic dressing to your taste. See notes in introduction for other ideas for the salad.
Once the meat is done cooking, remove from the grill and let rest for 5 – 10 minutes before slicing. Cut the meat against the grain into thin strips and serve the steak on top of the salad. Enjoy!
