Do you achieve better results from marinating if you poke holes in the meat beforehand?
Usually when I marinate any kind of meat (usually chicken or steak), I always just stick the whole piece of meat in marinade and let it sit for X hours. My question is, is it possible to achieve better (more flavorful, or juicy) results from marinading if you poke holes in the meat before marinating to allow the juices to flow INTO the meat? What are the benefits and drawbacks of said approach?
For the purpose of simplicity, lets keep the discussion to cuts of chicken and steak, cooked on a gas grill.
Best Answer
Most flavor molecules from marinades don't penetrate much below the surface of the meat. (Salt and to a lesser extent sugar are exceptions: they will gradually work their way in deeper in long marinades.)
Anyhow, if you actually want your marinade flavors to penetrate more than about 1/8" into the meat, the only real option is injection. But if you don't want to do that, poking holes or even gashing the surface with rough knife cuts will help a bit. You can see some photos at this link, showing how a colored dye (whose molecule size is as big as typical flavor molecules) doesn't get below the surface, but gashes and holes can help carry it deeper.
I don't know that there are any real drawbacks to the method, other than having a craggy surface on the meat. As Jolenealaska pointed out in comments, the idea that significant moisture loss occurs from piercing is mostly a myth. (For more detail on that, see Myth 6A here.)
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Quick Answer about "Do you achieve better results from marinating if you poke holes in the meat beforehand?"
More flavorful - longer hours in the marinate = more flavorful.Should you poke holes in meat before marinating?
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Marinating allows the muscle fibers in the meat to soak up flavor before hitting the grill. Cut slits into the steak before marinating to allow the flavor to penetrate deeper into the meat.Should you poke holes in pork chops before marinating?
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Answer 2
ChefSteps inject their cuts of meat with their 'brine', a marinade of salty water, liquid smoke, etc., before putting the entire thing in that brine to speed up the process (6-7 days down to 1-2 days)
https://youtu.be/_yTLjYRDDwI?t=51s (at 51s Ben talks about the brine for a pork shoulder, and speeding it up by injecting it. They have other videos for beef, and chicken, and frequently advocate injecting brine/marinade into their meats.)
This is effectively the same as poking holes in the meat and letting the marinade seep in more effectively.
It would depend on the size of the holes you're creating, if you're jacquarding the meat the holes will be larger than a needle.
Benefits: speed up marinating, more effective marinating.
Drawbacks: Depending on hole size, you could ruin presentation and texture. Depending on the marinade, you could be affecting the colour of the meat, too.
Answer 3
Have not experienced with chicken, but for steak normally I don't poke holes in it because all the juices will come out when grilling. For cheaper steak cuts though, I think it can help to poke it and even help to put some tenderizing elements to it. I've read somewhere that it is okay to poke as long as you avoid poking across the grain as it causes the meat cells to tighten.
To achieve what you want:
More flavorful - longer hours in the marinate = more flavorful. I've tried leaving a chicken in a salty marinade overnight and the next day it turned out really really salty.
Juicier - depends on the quality, cut, and doneness of the steak. Some parts are juicier than the other.
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