When marinating meat, longer is not always better. And in fact, depending on certain variables, there is a point at which the quality of that meat will start to deteriorate if you marinate it for too long before cooking. Instead of flavorful, tender meat, you could end up with a mushy mess.
Here’s what you need to know when considering how long you should, and can, marinate different types of meat.
The salt
Marinades generally contain salt, acid, fat (typically in the form of oil) and aromatics. “The role of marinade is twofold. One is to add flavor, and I think that’s the thing that most people pay attention to,” cookbook author Nik Sharma said. “The second thing is improving the texture of the meat.”
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Salt is perhaps the most important component of a marinade, turning it into a brine of sorts, which works to season the meat more thoroughly and helps with water retention for a moister product. “Because the returns for brining diminish over time, the first few hours of brining a large roast (or the first 30 minutes or so for smaller cuts) are critical, but soaking the meat until the end of a recommended time range — or even a few hours longer — won’t produce an appreciable difference in salt penetration,” Cook’s Illustrated senior editor Lan Lam wrote.
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It’s important to highlight that the size of the item you’re marinating is a factor in considering the amount of time you should brine. The other flavors in your marinade — aromatics and seasonings — only really penetrate the surface of the meat, so time isn’t much of a factor for them.
The acid
Acid is a critical factor in the marinating time equation. “Acidic marinades help solubilize the collagen in red meat, making the meat less tough; they also increase water retention and tenderization for a moist, toothsome result,” Sharma wrote in his cookbook “The Flavor Equation.” On the flip side, leaving meat in too much acid for too long can actually toughen some meat — as in the case of ceviche — or start to break down the proteins on the surface and lead to a mushy texture.
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However, it’s not just how much acid your marinade contains but what type. “All cooking acids do not behave the same way because they are fundamentally just different things,” Sharma said. There are three primary types of acid that we use in the kitchen: acetic (vinegar), citric (produce, such as lemon, lime and pineapple) and lactic (fermented dairy products, such as buttermilk and yogurt).
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Acetic is the harshest acid on muscle tissue, Sharma explained, followed by citric acid. Lactic acid is the most gentle of the three because mammals can synthesize it in our muscles. So if you use fermented dairy products, you won’t get the adverse texture changes that can happen if you marinate meat in vinegar or lemon juice. This makes lactic acid marinades good to go for longer periods of time. For example, you can marinate chicken in yogurt overnight without any worry. (Lactic acid is also “the best for tenderizing meat and increasing the water retention capacity,” Sharma said, because animal dairy is high in phosphates, which also help with water retention.)
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Another caveat to consider is that some foods contain enzymes that can affect the texture of the meat. The bromelain enzyme in pineapple juice, for instance, is notorious for turning meat into mush very quickly, so much so that some cooks suggest marinating chicken breasts for only 15 minutes to prevent that from happening.
The cut of meat
Another factor is the type of animal the meat came from. More delicate proteins, such as fish and seafood, don’t require nearly as much time to marinate as tougher meats, such as beef or lamb.
Get the recipe: Grilled Lemongrass Pork Chops
For some general guidance, grilling and barbecue expert Steven Raichlen lists the following rough guide to marinating times in his cookbook “Barbecue Sauces, Rubs, and Marinades — Bastes, Butters, and Glazes, Too.”
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- Very large pieces of meat (brisket, prime rib, pork shoulder, leg of lamb, turkey): 24 hours
- Large pieces of meat (beef and pork tenderloins, pork loins, rack and butterflied leg of lamb, whole chickens, large whole fish): 6 to 12 hours
- Medium pieces of meat (porterhouse steaks, double-cut pork chops, chicken halves or quarters, small whole fish): 4 to 8 hours
- Medium-to-small pieces of meat (steaks, pork and lamb chops, bone-in chicken breasts or legs, fish steaks): 1 to 3 hours
- Small pieces of meat (boneless chicken breast, fish fillets, shrimp): 15 minutes to 2 hours
But even if you choose to marinate with no acid or lactic acid, reducing the texture concerns, there’s still a food safety issue to keep in mind. The government recommends that you keep raw poultry in the refrigerator for only up to two days, and beef, veal, lamb and pork up to five days, to prevent it from spoiling or becoming dangerous to eat. If you ever find yourself in a situation where you have marinated meat that’s been sitting in the fridge and your plans for dinner have changed, simply toss it in the freezer to put the marinating process on pause and save it for another time.
