How You Can Turn Most Sauces Into An Appetizing Marinade

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Whether you are cooking meat, fish, or veggies, the step of marinating often gives these a welcome flavor and texture upgrade. It's a pretty easy task, too. An appetizing marinade for steak only takes three ingredients, while some other foods can even be marinated with fewer. For the absolute easiest marinades (aside from the pre-made bottled stuff), don't sleep on the store-bought sauces sitting in your pantry when you want to enhance a meal.

There are nearly limitless options when considering a sauce, which should impart your fare with all the flavor you are looking for. Yet that only accomplishes half of the goal of a marinade, which should also break down the food and tenderize it before it cooks. That requires something acidic. By introducing ingredients like citrus or vinegar to a pre-made sauce, it becomes everything you want a good marinade to be.

Almost any sauce can be adjusted with acid to loosen it up and create a tasty marinade, but you must consider how the flavors will work together. Ranch and buttermilk are a classic combination here, while a sauce like teriyaki can be accented with a bit of rice vinegar. Seasonings can also boost the appeal of a marinade. Your sauce might already be incredibly potent on its own, but don't be afraid to experiment with some herbs and spices if you think they would improve the flavor.

There are some sauces that don't need much adjustment by way of acid because they already contain an ample amount as-is. Still, you don't necessarily want to use up all your yummy homemade BBQ sauce on something like a marinade. It is best to thin out a sauce with some oil to boost the volume. Oil can also help all the tasty ingredients in the sauce to penetrate the meat, flavoring it more deeply as opposed to just sitting on the surface.

Once you have diluted a sauce with oil and made sure it has acidic components to tenderize your food, you need a vessel to put it in. However, be aware that not all containers are equal when it comes to marinating. Avoid using anything metal, as some ingredients undergo chemical reactions in metal bowls that will alter the flavor. Glass containers like these Anchor Hocking Glass Mixing Bowls are ideal, but plastic bags work just fine in a pinch.