We pound out some skirt steak and then layer down provolone cheese and fresh spinach before rolling the steak into a log. The logs are skewered and then reverse seared on a kamado grill which means they are smoked to bring the internal temp of the beef up slow and steady before getting seared off at the end to give that delicious flavor crust. The logs are then sliced into grilled skirt steak pinwheels which will be the best meat lollipop you will probably ever have.

Grilled Skirt Steak Pinwheels — GrillinFools Images ©

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With the price of the premium steak cuts (ribeye, filet, strip, porterhouse) through the roof, let’s look at some cheaper options to satisfy that succulent beef hankering without breaking the bank. With cheaper cuts come some negatives like less flavor and less tender. This Grilled Skirt Steak Pinwheels recipe will help improve those two aspects. Scroll down to see how.

I just want to note, that if you dig this recipe as much as we do, this is not our first pinwheel recipe. Here’s one with pork tenderloin and bacon and the other is a three meat pinwheel with ribeye, ham and sausage.

Grilled Skirt Steak Pinwheels Ingredients

3 – 3.5 pounds skirt steak (three skirt steaks)
2 sheets of plastic wrap
Salt to taste
12 slices of provolone cheese
4 ounces of fresh spinach
36 wooden skewers approximately 5-6 inches long
Your favorite BBQ rub
1/2 cup hoisin sauce – optional
1/2 cup peanuts, crushed – optional

When cooking skirt steak rolled up to make pinwheels, we want to avoid steak rolls of different thicknesses. This makes it hard to cook more than one to the same temperature because of the different sizes, which leads to this bit of advice

Pro Tip ~ When making pinwheels with skirt or flank steak, cut all the steak to the same length:

Now when we roll these up, they will all be pretty similar in size, thickness and weight.

Lay down a couple sheets of plastic wrap on the skirt steaks that are now all the same length and bust out the meat mallet:

Remember me talking about lesser cuts of steak being less flavorful and less tender? The pounding with a mallet will help with the latter and speed up the cooking process. Our goal it to make the skirt steaks a little flatter, a little wider and a little more tender. Don’t try to pound them to wafer thin.

Editor’s Note ~ The awesome butchers we got these from trimmed the skirts up more than you might get at your local grocery store. That means you might have to trim a little excess fat off yours

Now that the steak is more tender, let’s add some flavor.

Salt both sides of the skirt steak.

Time for the Cheese

Then lay down four slices of cheese on each skirt steak but leave an inch or two space at each end of the skirt steak (more on that in a minute):

Then layer the fresh spinach over the cheese:

Roll ‘Em Up

Roll up the skirt steak, trying to keep the rolls tight:

Set the rolled up skirt steak with the flap on the top and grab those skewers and place a couple in like this, every inch or so:

This is my Force Choking the skirt steak:

But wait, those skewers are more than 5-6 inches.

Yes they are.

I will both shorten them and explain why a little farther down

Season the Outside

Before we head out to the grill, grab your favorite BBQ Rub, preferably a beef or steak rub.

Season the outside of the skirt steak:

The reason we don’t put the cheese all the way up to the edge, is that when rolled up, the cheese will stick out and as soon as it melts from the heat, it will run right out into the bottom of the grill.

That’s still going to happen, but it will be less so if the cheese isn’t sticking out of the steak roll.

We are going to reverse sear the pinwheels. Which begs the question:

Should I Reverse Sear Steak?

Abso-freakin-lutely. Reverse searing imparts that smoky flavor first then when seared at the end the steak gets that beautiful browning which also caramelizes the proteins for amazing flavor. The process also cooks the meat more evenly than searing first. Meat stops taking smoke between 140F-160F. Searing the steak first, takes the beef above the 160F on the outside so the steak won’t take any smoke. To get the best of both worlds, smoke then sear otherwise known as the reverse sear method. These are all the reverse seared recipes on GrillinFools.com.

How to Make Grilled Skirt Steak Pinwheels
Start by preparing the grill for two zone or indirect grilling. This recipe was cooked on a Primo Ceramic Grill which is a kamado style grill. With most kamado grills, to do indirect grilling a plate (or plates) are placed between the fire and the meat so the heat is deflected around the meat and doesn’t burn the protein. But with the unique oval shape of the Primo, I can put charcoal on one side and put the skirt steak on the other side. This will make it much easier to convert from smoking to searing on one grill.

Target temperature inside the grill is 250F. I have the coals and smoke wood (white oak) on one side and the skirt steak on the other:

And here’s where we got into trouble with the length of the skewers.

The lid wouldn’t close!

A pair of needle nose pliers with wire cutters to the rescue:

Resolved:

That one on the right above, looks like it has a green tongue!

Smoke the Rolled Skirt Steak

Now the lid on the Primo will close:

The two rolled up skirt steaks closer to the fire are a bit thicker than the one in the back so they got front row seats to the fire (although it doesn’t look like it in the pic from above):

We smoked the steak to 124F which took close to an hour:

Stoke up the fire to north of 400F on the surface above the hot coals and then we will sear off these pinwheels.

But, let’s not forget those chunks of skirt steak we sliced off to even out the lengths:

While the lid is open to feed the fire (and maybe extra charcoal) with air, the rolled up skirt steak isn’t going to cook any more, so we can sear these chunks off on both sides and have some nice snacks.

Call it quality control.

It’s the responsible thing to do:

Before searing the rolled up skirt steak I switched over to a cast iron grill grate and once it hit close to 500F it was time to sear:

Time to Sear

Caramelize those proteins:

And yes, we are going to lose some cheese:

Get some browning on not just the bottom, but the sides as well:

Once the rolled up skirt steak hits about 140F, pull them from the grill:

Allow these to rest for a few minutes.

It’s not because the juices need to settle down, but so the cheese doesn’t run out all over the plate if you cut these while piping hot.

Time to Slice the Grilled Skirt Steak Pinwheels

Before you make a nasty comment below about the gospel of resting, please read this article about the myth of resting.

Check out the glisten:

These can be eaten just like this, or they can be dunked in hoisin and then dipped into crushed peanuts:

Don’t forget to dust these with a little more of that rub once they are sliced and plated.

Grilled Skirt Steak Pinwheels Recap

As for how they were, the spinach and cheese and the spiral cross section are wonderful for presentation and that cheese and spinach make a lesser steak taste better. In the end, this is not as tender as filet mignon or ribeye, but it is also a fraction of the cost and gives me that hearty beef flavor that I’m not eating nearly as much due to the economy. Yes, I’ve eaten this as an entrée. It was designed to be a Super Bowl appetizer but 2 or 3 of these make for a main course.

If you have any questions or comments about these grilled skirt steak pinwheels, feel free to leave them below or send me an email.

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Recipe Card:

2 Skirt Steak Pinwheels 33 | GrillinFools — GrillinFools Images ©

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Grilled Skirt Steak Pinwheels

Grilled Skirt Steak Pinwheels - skirt steak, cheese and spinach rolled up and reverse seared before slicing into pinwheels and dunking in hoisin and peanuts

Prep Time15

Cook Time1 15

Course: Appetizer, Finger Food

Cuisine: American, American Fare, Appetizer, Barbecue, BBQ, Cheese, Grilling, Steak

Keyword: Appetizer, BBQ, BBQ Rub, Ceramic Grill, Grill Steak, Grilled Skirt Steak Pinwheels, Grilled Steak, Kamado, Kamado Grill, Pinwheels, Primo Grill, Primo Kamado Grill, reverse sear, reverse seared, Reverse Seared Steak, Skirt Steak, Skirt Steak Pinwheels, Steak, Steak Pinwheels, Super Bowl

Servings: People

Equipment

2 Sheets of plastic wrap
1 Meat mallet
36 skewers

Ingredients

3 Skirt steaks 3-3.5 lbs
Salt to taste
12 slices Provolone cheese
4 ounces Fresh spinach
Your favorite BBQ rub
½ cup Hoisin sauce
½ cup Crushed peanuts

Instructions

Cut the three skirt steaks to all be the same length
Season both sides of the skirt steak with salt
Lay down four slices of cheese on each skirt steak, leaving an inch or so at the end
Top the cheese with the fresh spinach
Roll up the skirt steak and then skewer the end every inch or so
Season the outside of the rolled up skirt steak with your favorite BBQ rub
Prepare the grill for two zone or indirect grilling with the target temperature inside the grill of 250F
Smoke the rolled up skirt steak until it reaches 125F
Crank up the heat of the grill to north of 400F and sear the steak on the bottom and the sides
Once the steak is seared, and reaches about 140F, remove them from the grill and allow to rest for a few minutes
Slice the rolled up skirt steak into pinwheels
Dust with a little extra seasoning after sliced into pinwheels
Dunk in hoisin and crushed peanuts (optional)

Video

With so many great pics of this cook, I have added a few more pics of these grilled skirt steak pinwheels:

Scott Thomas

Scott Thomas, the Original Grillin’ Fool, was sent off to college with a suitcase and a grill where he overcooked, undercooked and burned every piece of meat he could find. After thousands of failures, and quite a few successes, nearly two decades later he started a website to show step by step, picture by picture, foolproof instructions on how to make great things out of doors so that others don’t have to repeat the mistakes he’s made on the grill.

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