Easy Marinade for Steak

Marinating meats, from chicken to fish and especially tough cuts of beef, is an easy culinary trick that injects a lot of flavor with minimal effort. Our simple marinade helps tenderize all sorts of beef cuts, even the ones you usually skip for being less tender. Think of flank or skirt steak, although other cuts also gain great juiciness from this preparation. Our marinade mixes the umami flavors of soy and Worcestershire sauce with tangy Dijon and vinegar, alongside the perfect amount of sweet apple sauce. If you're using very tough cuts, we recommend marinating them for at least three hours, and for more conventional cuts allow 20 to 30 minutes, as the acid in the mixture can alter the texture of the meat, making it mushy. Get ready for an easy and delicious preparation that will elevate your steak.

Our recipe does contain gluten, as both the soy sauce and the Worcestershire have wheat-based ingredients. Check the labels to be sure, but replace both with tamari to make a gluten-free preparation. If using tamari, you are also making a fish-free mixture because most Worcestershire brands use anchovies in their ingredients. We don't recommend other substitutions but do encourage you to use our recipe as a template for creating other simple marinades.

Most classic marinades are composed of oil, acid, and a flavoring ingredient, but that doesn't necessarily have to be the case to make a great mixture. Some would use a 3:1 oil-to-acid ratio, perhaps 3/4 cup of olive oil to 1/4 cup of lemon juice, to which you can add fresh herbs and seasonings to taste, like powdered garlic or chili flakes. Some others would use an umami and salty base that's a flavoring agent at the same time, like ours, adding acid—vinegar and Dijon—to the soy and Worcestershire. But the sky's the limit—you can use the 3:1 ratio and add shallots, cilantro, garlic cloves, or fresh or dry herbs, or use ours and add other flavoring agents to the steak once it's grilled. Regardless of what you finally choose to do, this preparation can make delicious steaks for tacos or juicy steak strips to serve with baked potatoes and grilled vegetables.