Steak Fajita Salad with Creamy Cilantro Lime Dressing

August in Phoenix is the month where the city collectively agrees that going outside is a mistake but does it anyway because we have jobs and children and groceries don't buy themselves. It was 115 on Wednesday. One hundred and fifteen degrees. The asphalt on our street was soft. Literally soft. I could press my boot into it and leave a print. Sofia's plastic slide in the backyard was too hot to touch until 7 PM. The grill — which is made of steel and sits in direct sun — reached 200 degrees before I even lit it, which I suppose is a head start but is also mildly terrifying.

I've been doing early morning cooks to avoid the worst of the heat. Up at 4 AM, fire lit by 4:30, cooking done by noon before the sun turns the backyard into a furnace. This week I smoked a whole chicken — spatchcocked, rubbed with a cumin-paprika-garlic blend, smoked over mesquite at 300 degrees for two hours. Spatchcocking is the move for poultry: you cut out the backbone, flatten the bird, and it cooks evenly in half the time. I learned this from a YouTube video three years ago and have been evangelizing it since, to the annoyance of everyone who has ever made the mistake of asking me about chicken.

Jessica took Sofia to the splash pad at the park this week — the only outdoor activity that's survivable in August. Sofia is fully walking now, running almost, and she attacked the splash pad with the intensity of a small, determined general. She splashed, she shrieked, she tried to drink the water shooting out of the ground, and she did not want to leave. Jessica sent me a video and I watched it six times at the station between calls. My daughter, in a watermelon swimsuit, laughing in arcs of water. This is what I fight fires for.

At the station this week I introduced a new menu item: Korean-inspired tacos. Grilled short rib, marinated in soy sauce, sesame oil, ginger, and brown sugar, served on small flour tortillas with a quick-pickled cucumber-jalapeño slaw. The guys were skeptical — "Rivera, what's wrong with regular tacos?" — until they tasted them, and then nobody spoke for three minutes, which at Station 19 is the equivalent of a standing ovation. Fusion cooking gets a bad reputation because people do it badly. When you do it well — when you respect both traditions — it's not fusion. It's conversation.

My dad would disagree with everything in that last paragraph. Roberto Rivera believes in cooking one cuisine — Mexican — and cooking it perfectly. He views my Korean tacos the way a classical pianist views jazz: with respect, confusion, and the firm belief that what he does is better. That's fine. He's earned his opinions. But I'm thirty-one and I'm building my own grill, and sometimes that grill has sesame oil on it. Sorry, Dad.

The Korean tacos got the standing ovation at Station 19, but my dad’s voice is always in the back of my head when I start drifting too far from home — and honestly, he’s not wrong that there’s something irreplaceable about the flavors he raised me on. So after a week of cumin-rubbed birds and sesame oil, I came back to something that lives right on the line between both worlds: a steak fajita salad with a creamy cilantro lime dressing that’s bright enough for a 115-degree August evening and grillable at 4:30 in the morning without complaint. It’s not a peace offering to Roberto Rivera — it’s more like evidence that the conversation he and I are having, one meal at a time, is still going strong.

Prep Time: 20 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 32 min | Servings: 4

Ingredients

For the steak & fajita vegetables:
1 1/2 lbs flank steak or skirt steak
2 tablespoons olive oil, divided
1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
1 teaspoon cumin
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1 red bell pepper, sliced into strips
1 yellow bell pepper, sliced into strips
1 medium yellow onion, sliced into half-rings
For the salad:
6 cups chopped romaine lettuce
1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
1 cup canned black beans, drained and rinsed
1 cup frozen corn, thawed (or grilled fresh corn cut from 2 ears)
1 avocado, sliced
1/4 cup crumbled cotija cheese (or feta)
Tortilla strips or crushed tortilla chips, for topping
For the creamy cilantro lime dressing:
1/2 cup sour cream (or plain Greek yogurt)
3 tablespoons fresh lime juice (about 2 limes)
1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves, packed
1 small garlic clove
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/4 teaspoon salt
2–3 tablespoons water, to thin as needed

Instructions

Marinate the steak. Pat the steak dry and rub all over with 1 tablespoon olive oil. Combine the chili powder, cumin, smoked paprika, garlic powder, salt, and pepper and press the spice mixture into both sides of the meat. Let rest at room temperature for 15 minutes, or cover and refrigerate for up to 8 hours.
Make the dressing. Combine the sour cream, lime juice, cilantro, garlic, olive oil, cumin, and salt in a blender or small food processor. Blend until smooth. Thin with water one tablespoon at a time until pourable. Taste and adjust salt and lime. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
Cook the fajita vegetables. Heat a cast-iron skillet or grill pan over high heat until very hot. Toss the bell peppers and onion with the remaining 1 tablespoon olive oil and a pinch of salt. Cook, stirring occasionally, for 8–10 minutes until softened and charred at the edges. Set aside.
Grill the steak. On the same high-heat grill or grill pan, cook the steak for 4–5 minutes per side for medium-rare (internal temperature 130–135°F), or until your preferred doneness. Transfer to a cutting board and rest for 5 minutes. Slice thinly against the grain.
Assemble the salads. Divide the romaine among four bowls. Top each with cherry tomatoes, black beans, corn, fajita vegetables, and avocado slices. Arrange the sliced steak over the top. Sprinkle with cotija cheese and tortilla strips.
Dress and serve. Drizzle generously with the creamy cilantro lime dressing. Serve immediately with extra dressing and lime wedges on the side.

Nutrition (per serving)

Steak Fajita Salad with Creamy Cilantro Lime Dressing — Dad, This One’s for You