The Manual may earn a commission when you buy best healthy teriyaki sauce links on our site. Everyone uses brines and rubs to season and flavor their meat but a simple method called marinating will not only flavor your favorite beef recipes, it will also tenderize those tough fibers or cuts of meat — such as on a skirt steak.
A marinade is a sauce that contains fat, acid, and seasonings. Fat can be an oil, buttermilk, mayonnaise, or yogurt. An acid can be lemon, limes, oranges, any type of vinegar, wine, or tomatoes. The seasonings can be paired with the acid to create a flavor profile.
The fat will create moisture and will allow any fat-soluble ingredients to be absorbed into the meat. Once the beef has been marinated, you can begin the cooking process. Ideally, you will cook the beef on the grill or even use a grill pan. Although these are marinades for beef, you can apply them to almost any meat, including chicken or pork.
You just need to watch the marinating time because some meats will marinate faster while others will take longer. Usually the tougher the meat, the longer the marinade. Marinades take anywhere from 1 hour to overnight, it just depends on the recipe. You can use the marinade as a basting sauce but you should never serve it as a sauce bon its own because of potential bacteria from the raw meat. If you do use it as part of the basting method, you should stop basting when you get close to the desired temperature to cook off any juices from the raw meat. What should I marinate steak in? Just pick one of these 11 best beef marinades.