One Ingredient That Should Never Be In Your Steak Marinade

Before throwing your steak on the grill, you might want to marinate it first. In our experience, a good steak marinade could make all the difference between biting into a bland and chewy piece of meat or a juicy and flavorful one. Not only does this pre-flame bath help to infuse the meat with vibrant flavors, but it also comes in handy if you're looking to tenderize those tougher cuts of beef, including chuck, round, flank, and skirt steaks. 

While there are a bunch of ingredients you can include in a marinade to give your meat a tenderizing boost of flavor, from miso to mayonnaise to maple syrup, there is one ingredient you'd do best to avoid. According to CJ Jacobson, "Top Chef" contestant and chef and partner of Chicago-based Mediterranean eateries Aba and Ēma, beer is one thing that should always be left out of your marinades.

Although the boozy beverage is an undeniably popular choice among carnivorous cooks hoping to soften up their steaks, Jacobson tells Tasting Table that it actually does little in terms of elevating meat's flavor. In fact, it can have the opposite effect, causing a marinade to be less potent. "Beer does not generally do anything," he explains. "The most important thing in marinating is forming a concentration of flavor. Beer, for the most part, waters down a marinade." But that's not the only reason you may want to leave it out of your marinade mix.

One of the most important components of a marinade is acid, which breaks down the tough muscle fibers in meat, leading to it becoming softer and more tender. Though beer does contain alpha acids, beta acids, and tannins, which can support this process, it also has a strong, bitter flavor that can end up ruining the taste of your finished product. Indeed, Chef CJ Jacobson points to this as another reason you should skip the beer in your marinade: "Oftentimes, it's too hoppy and the bitterness can be overwhelming."

Jacobson is certainly not the only one who finds that to be the case. In a thread on the Reddit group r/Homebrewing, even a beer-making connoisseur like this commenter couldn't deny the poor results: "I just grilled a steak last night after [marinating] it in a porter I made. I wasn't a fan. The beer left a lot of bitterness in the meat, and subdued a lot of the savory flavors that you want in a steak."

If you are absolutely set on using a brew in your marinade, though, you should opt for lighter and sweeter beers that aren't too heavy on the hops. Still, there are plenty of other, better ingredients to use, such as the ones in our own tenderizing steak marinade recipe: lemon juice, soy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and balsamic vinegar. But also keep Jacobson's final tip in mind: "Definitely avoid ingredients you do not like in marinades because you undoubtedly will taste it in the final product."