The 3 Key Ingredients For A Tenderizing Steak Marinade

Marinating steak is one of those cooking tricks that most people learn early on, but never really question whether it actually works. A lot of people grew up watching their parents slather a steak in sauce and stick it in the fridge before grilling, so it just seems natural that covering your meat in a flavorful mixture would make it taste better, and soaking it in wet sauce would help make it juicy and tender. Whoever you learned from was right, but probably not for the reason they thought. Marinades can help tenderize meat, but not because of the moisture. Tenderizing only happens due to a few elements, all of which can be found in the three key ingredients used in our own tenderizing steak marinade.

Those ingredients are vinegar, lemon juice, and soy sauce, and together they provide a powerful force for tenderizing your steak. There are a few reasons for this, and the first is something all three have, especially the lemon and vinegar: acid. Meat can be tenderized by acids because they break down proteins in a process called denaturing, which makes the marinating meat softer. The way acids change the shape of proteins also helps the meat retain moisture better through a binding process with amino acids that are exposed by the marinade. You won't see this happening, but it all leads to tender steak.

The soy sauce in the steak marinade provides another key element for tenderizing meat beyond acid, food's best friend salt. While pumping up the flavor is salt's biggest benefit, wet or dry brining foods with salty mixtures also helps tenderize them. As your meat sits in the brine, the salt gradually works its way to the center of the cut by diffusion, in a process called osmosis. Like acid, salt breaks down proteins in meat, specifically muscle proteins. This is especially useful because those proteins are what contract when steak or other meats are cooked, expelling moisture. Weakened proteins mean less moisture loss which means more tender steak. And because diffusion means salt can penetrate all the way through your steak, the benefits aren't limited to the outer area exposed to the marinade.

While tenderizing is all well and good, these three ingredients also have important flavor benefits as well. The vinegar and lemon juice provide balance to hearty steak by adding important bright, tangy elements; acidic ingredients also help boost the flavor of everything they touch. The soy sauce packs the most punch here, as not only will its salt season meat as it marinates, but soy sauce also has umami notes that are lacking in the other ingredients, bringing further depth to your meat. Altogether these three ingredients bring everything you need for a great steak.