Gordon Ramsay’s nachos carry a full barbecue beef on top, not just cheese. Skirt steak strips in chipotle, lime, beer and barbecue sauce, layered three times with beans and Cheddar, grilled until bubbling. About 15 minutes.
The recipe is printed in Ramsay in 10 as Barbecue Beef Nachos with Crispy Fried Onions. His headnote is straight about the maths: feeding a crowd in ten minutes is hard. When ten minutes is all you have, make nachos.
Layering is the technique. Chips, beans, beef, cheese, then the same again twice more. Every chip in the dish touches something. One pile with toppings dumped on top leaves the bottom half naked, three thin layers doesn’t.
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Gordon Ramsay Barbecue Beef Nachos
Course: AppetizersCuisine: MexicanDifficulty: Easy2
servings5
minutes10
minutes1500
kcal15 min
Barbecue Beef Nachos with Crispy Fried Onions from Ramsay in 10. Skirt steak in a chipotle, beer and barbecue pan sauce, built in three layers and finished under the grill.
Ingredients
Vegetable oil, for frying
450g (1 lb) skirt, hanger or flank steak
2 garlic cloves
2 tbsp chipotle chilli paste
1 tbsp fajita spice mix
85ml (⅓ cup) lime juice
125ml (½ cup) IPA or pale ale
120ml (½ cup) barbecue sauce
4 large handfuls of plain tortilla chips
1 x 400g (15 oz) can of mixed beans or black beans, drained and rinsed
200g (2 cups) grated Cheddar or Monterey Jack cheese
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- To serve:
1 tbsp crispy fried onions
Small handful of coriander leaves
Directions
- Heat the grill: Preheat the grill to high.
- Heat the pan: Place a large frying pan over a high heat and coat the bottom with a thin layer of oil.
- Slice the steak: Cut the steak into thin strips, 5mm x 2.5cm, with a very sharp knife.
- Brown the beef: When the oil is hot, add the steak, season with salt and pepper and cook for 2 minutes until browned.
- Build the sauce: Peel and crush the garlic and add it with the chipotle paste, fajita spice mix, lime juice and beer. Stir to coat, bring to the boil for 2 to 3 minutes and reduce by half.
- Finish the sauce: Add the barbecue sauce and boil for 1 to 2 minutes more, then take the pan off the heat.
- Layer: Put a layer of tortilla chips in an ovenproof baking dish, top with some beans, beef and cheese. Repeat the same order twice more.
- Grill and serve: Grill until the cheese is bubbling. Scatter over the crispy fried onions and coriander, and serve with pico de gallo, guacamole and soured cream.
Notes
- The book says you can double it for a game or movie night, just expect the build to take longer than the clock says.
FAQs
Which steak works best for nachos?
Skirt, hanger or flank, and the book names all three. They behave the same way: big flavour, fast cooking, tough if mistreated. Slicing into thin strips before cooking is the trick, 2 minutes in a hot pan and they’re done.
His London broil takes the same flank steak the opposite way, griddled whole, rested, then carved thin. Strips before for speed, carving after for a centrepiece.
What if I don’t have fajita spice mix?
Make it, it’s three spices. His beef fajitas build the mix from cumin, chilli powder and paprika with salt and pepper, and a teaspoon of each covers this recipe. The jar is a shortcut, not an ingredient.
The chipotle paste carries most of the smoke anyway. The spice mix is the supporting act.
Why does beer go in the sauce?
It’s the deglazing liquid. The IPA lifts the browned beef juices off the pan, then boils down by half with the lime and chipotle into a glaze before the barbecue sauce lands. The bitterness balances all that sweetness.
No beer in the house? Beef stock does the job with less edge. And the rest of the chipotle jar has a home in his spicy Mexican soup, built on the same smoky base with kidney beans.
How do you stop nachos going soggy?
Three thin layers instead of one pile, that’s most of it. Chips, beans, beef, cheese, repeated. The cheese waterproofs each level and no chip sits under a wet heap. Then straight under the grill and straight to the table.
Storage answer, honestly: there is none. Nachos are a serve-immediately dish, the chips give up within the hour. Make what gets eaten.
What do you serve with beef nachos?
The book’s list: pico de gallo, guacamole and soured cream, all cold and sharp against the hot tray. For a bigger spread, his street corn dip sits perfectly beside them, warm chipotle-buttered corn scooped with the same chips.
Coriander on top, no exceptions in this house. The crispy fried onions are the shop-bought kind, one tablespoon from the tub.
