A marinade can make everyday meal, something like a meal from a posh restaurant. Yes the taste and the texture of the meat after getting a marinade just right, is one of life’s pleasures that’s for sure!

Marinating meat doesn’t have to be done 24 hours before hand, especially if you are using wine, juice, vinegar, salt or alcohol, as these will soak into the meat too much and overpower it, so two hours is the recommended marinating time for marinades with these ingredients.

If you crave the melt in the mouth tender meat taste (whether it’s beef, pork, lamb, venison, poultry, or fish) and don’t want to wait the twenty four hours (or even the 2 hours mentioned already), then I’d recommend tenderizing the meat first. In fact, I use this kitchen appliance - the Deni Circular 49 Blade Meat Tenderizer - MT149, which has sharp stainless steel blades that tenderize the meat, making it both quicker to absorb the marinade and cook.

Once you have tenderized the meat, you need to mix the meat and marinade together, place in a container and put in the fridge. A couple of pointers here, never leave the marinade at room temperature, and never use a metal container to marinade the meat in, as some ingredients can react with metal, especially aluminum and cast iron.

The best thing to put a marinade in is a sealed plastic bag, as this can be shook, and turned over during the marinating process to ensure all the meat is covered and the marinade soaks evenly in.

I often just marinade meat for half an hour, and it still tastes divine, so if you are anything like me, and don’t plan your meals a day in advance, then half an hour is an okay time to marinate meat for. If you have time to marinade it longer, then you might get some extra flavor, but if you tenderize the meat (with a kitchen appliance like the the Deni Circular 49 Blade Meat Tenderizer - MT149) beforehand then any extra time really isn’t necessary.

Lastly when you cook up the marinated meat make sure that you treat it as you would any raw meat, and that you discard any unused marinade. Tempting as it may seem to keep the marinade it has been in contact with raw meat, so it needs to be thrown away and not reused.