Spicy Pan-Seared Tuna Steaks

These can actually be as spicy or not-so-spicy as your family likes. Fresh tuna steaks are marinated in a flavorful soy sauce based sauce and then quickly seared just before serving. Super easy. Super fast. Super delicious. Plus NO prep bowls to clean! Just one pan to clean and one Ziploc bag to throw away.

The marinade includes lime and soy sauce, ginger and garlic, chili paste (which can be adjusted to taste), and cilantro. Tuna is a drier fish, so the marinade also contains quite a lot of oil, but the marinade is drained off before cooking, so you don’t actually eat all of that oil. But it will keep your fish nice and moist. Tuna is best eaten on the rare side. It is so much more tender and flavorful that way. Nothing at all like dry tuna out of a can.

Marinate your fish in a Ziploc bag or shallow dish at room temperature for 30-40 minutes before you plan on eating (or prepare it earlier in the day and place in the refrigerator. Remove from fridge 30 minutes before you plan on cooking it).

This cooks very fast-only about 5 minutes total, so have your side dishes ready before you begin searing.

To cook, heat a skillet over medium-high to high heat. Don’t add any oil; the marinade has plenty of that! Remove fish from marinade, draining off as much of the marinade as possible.

Add tuna steaks to the hot pan and cook 3 minutes on the first side and 2 minutes on the second side.

You can cover the pan to reduce splattering, if you like. Tuna will be cooked about ¼” through, and rare in middle. Increase cooking time if you want it cooked a little more, but don’t overcook; it will quickly become dry.

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