Brown Sugar and Soy Marinade and Grilling Tips

It’s grilling season!

I just love that first whiff of something grilling in my neighborhood on that first warm day of the season. It gets me all fired up and I head to the grocery store for my favorite marinade ingredients, fresh veggies, and the fixin’s for a pasta salad. My mouth waters as my chicken hits the grill and the edges start to caramelize from the sweetness of the marinade. Oh sweet memories of summer barbeques!

I have killed more than a few steaks over the years. I can’t tell you how many times I have burned the outside and then cut into the steak to find the meat raw inside. This is so very disappointing! To make your summer grilling easy, and to avoid the same disaster, here are some grilling tips that you can use as a cheat sheet!

• Before cooking, remove meat from the marinade. Then let it sit on kitchen counter for 30 minutes to relax the muscles in the meat. If you take cold meat from your refrigerator and put it directly onto or under heat, your meat will be tough.
• Before serving any meat, let it sit for 15 minutes after removing it from the heat source. This will allow the juices to redistribute through the meat. If you serve or cut into it immediately after cooking, all the juices will run out and leave your meat dry.
• Don’t poke or squish your meat with your fork or spatula. All this does is remove the yummy juices.
• Preheat grill and reduce heat to medium. Place meat on the grill rack over the heat but not over direct flames. If it looks like a fire is under your meat, move the meat to the other side of the grill.
• A meat thermometer will be your best friend. Getting the internal temperature correct is a fail-proof way of grilling, roasting, broiling, etc. You can’t go wrong if the temperature is correct! For medium rare steak, you want a temperature of 145 degrees. For medium, you want a temperature of 160 degrees. You always want your pork to reach a temperature of 160 degrees and chicken should reach 180 degrees.

And here are some standard cooking times:

• For boneless 1” thick steaks, 10-15 minutes (check temperatures based on your preferred doneness)
• For a larger steak like flank or London Broil, 18-22 minutes (check temperatures based on your preferred doneness)
• For pork chops, 10-18 minutes, depending on thickness.
• For pork tenderloin, 30-40 minutes.
• For bone-in chicken pieces, 40-50 minutes.
• For boneless chicken, 12-15 minutes.
• For fish fillets, 4-6 minutes or until it flakes easily with a fork

If you don’t have an outdoor grill, you can broil meat, chicken or seafood using the same temperatures and cooking times as above. Simply place meat on a broiler pan about 5 inches under the heat, turning over once halfway through cooking time (except for fish fillets which do not need to be flipped).

Go get your grill fired up! Here’s a very easy marinade recipe that uses ingredients that you probably already have in your kitchen. This works on just about anything!

Brown Sugar and Soy Marinade

• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup low-sodium soy sauce
• 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
• dash or two of cayenne (optional – add as much or as little heat as you like)

Blend all ingredients and rub over beef, pork, poultry or salmon. Cover and marinate 2 to 24 hours in the refrigerator. (This makes enough for four steaks, chops, fillets, or one whole cut up chicken.) If using with salmon or other fish, only let it sit in the marinade for about 30 – 40 minutes.

In this month’s issue of the P31 Woman magazine, I share three additional favorite marinade recipes (one is my all time favorite) along with the following safety tips for marinating. I have a quarterly column in the magazine! For more information about the magazine or to subscribe, click here.

Important Food Safety Notes on marinating:

1. Always cover and marinate meats, pork, poultry or seafood in the refrigerator.
2. Remove food from marinade before cooking.
3. If you want to serve extra marinade with your entree, make sure you bring it to a boil and simmer for 3-5 minutes to kill any bacteria.
4. If your marinade has a high acid content (lots of citrus or vinegar) you do not want to marinate as long and you especially do not want to marinate seafood for more than 30 minutes. The acid in the citrus will begin to cook the seafood and leave it a little rubbery.
5. Most marinades are delicious on vegetables but I marinate in separate containers. If making kabobs, marinate your vegetables in one container and whatever meat you are using in another, before assembling the kabobs.

OK – Happy grilling!

Sweetest Blessings,
LeAnn