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Next Door Chef nextdoorchef.com/recipes/flank-steak-pinwheels
Weeknight Dinners Kid approved
Flank Steak Pinwheels Stuffed With Spinach and Provolone
One butterflied flank steak, a layer of spinach and provolone, roll, tie, slice. Butcher-counter looks, weeknight effort.
Pinwheels are the best return on effort in the entire steak category. One knife move you can learn in two minutes, a layer of cheese and spinach, some twine, and suddenly you are the person who serves spiral-cut stuffed steak on a Tuesday.
The engineering matters more than the ingredients: roll with the grain so every slice cuts against it, leave the sealing edge bare, tie before you slice. Get those three right and the pan does the rest.
- Prep
- 30 min
- Cook
- 12 min
- Total
- 42 min
- Serves
- 6
- Level
- Medium
How to make it
-
Butterfly the flank steak
Lay the steak flat and slice horizontally through the long side, stopping a half inch from the far edge so it opens like a book. Take it slow, long strokes, and keep the blade parallel to the board. Open it, cover with plastic, and pound anything thick to an even half inch.
Chef's note. Twenty minutes in the freezer firms the meat and makes this cut dramatically easier.
-
Layer the filling with a bare border
Salt and pepper the inside, then garlic, provolone, spinach and peppers in that order, leaving a one inch bare strip along the far edge. That strip is the seal. Overfill it and the roll squeezes everything out the ends like a stepped-on tube of toothpaste.
-
Roll with the grain, tie against it
Roll toward the bare edge, with the grain running the length of the roll, so slicing pinwheels later cuts across the grain automatically. Tie with twine every inch and a half, snug but not strangling. Slice between the ties into inch-and-a-half pinwheels.
-
Sear hot and fast, rest before serving
Oil the cut faces, then into a ripping hot pan or grill: 3 to 4 minutes a side for medium rare, 130F in the meat between the filling. The cheese at the edges will brown onto the crust, which is the best part. Rest 5 minutes, snip the twine, serve.
Why this works
Flank steak is thin, wide, lean and strongly grained, which makes it wrong for a lot of things and perfect for this. Butterflying doubles the surface, and rolling with the grain means every pinwheel slice is automatically a cross-grain cut, the single thing that decides whether flank chews tender or like a strap. The bare-edge rule is structural, since the roll seals on meat against meat, not on cheese. And the pinwheel shape is doing thermal work too: filling in the center insulates, so the meat around it stays juicy at a hard sear temperature that would overcook a flat flank in the same minutes.
Swap what you do not have
- Mozzarella melts creamier, provolone tastes stronger. Fontina is the fancy move.
- Basil pesto smeared under the cheese instead of garlic, when the garden gets ahead of you.
- No twine? Soaked toothpicks pinning each pinwheel work fine.
Make ahead
Roll, tie and slice up to a day ahead, refrigerated on a covered tray. They actually sear better after a day, the surface dries and the roll sets.
Leftovers and storage
Cooked pinwheels keep 3 days. Reheat gently in a covered skillet, the microwave makes the cheese leak and the steak sulk.
Per serving, estimated: 380 cal 40g protein 4g carbs 22g fat
Questions people ask
How do you butterfly a flank steak?
Slice horizontally into the long thick side, keeping the knife parallel to the cutting board, and stop about a half inch before you cut through so the steak opens like a book. A slightly frozen steak and long slow strokes make it a two minute job. Pound the opened steak even before filling.
How do you keep pinwheels from falling apart on the grill?
Three things: leave a bare inch of meat at the sealing edge so the roll closes on itself, tie at every planned slice line before cutting, and flip with tongs gripping across the spiral, not into it. Chilling the tied roll 30 minutes before slicing helps it hold too.
What temperature are steak pinwheels done?
Pull at 125F in the meat just inside the spiral for medium rare, and it carries to about 130F while resting. The filling insulates the center, so probe the meat, not the middle of the roll. Past 140F flank starts to tighten and the slices lose their juice.
Recipe by Sammy Panice, the Next Door Chef. More at nextdoorchef.com
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