Marinades are the flavorful liquids that make your plain meats extra tasty. Marinades work so that it’s an almost no-fail mixture. You can taste your mixture before adding your meats to the mix so you know exactly what you need to add to make it taste just right.
You can make anything super delicious with these ingredients and these marinade recipes:
- soy sauce
- vinegar
- calamansi juice
- sugar
- black pepper
- fish sauce (patis)
- ginger
- garlic
- tomato sauce or ketchup
- sesame oil
Once you have these ingredients, you can make any of these marinades:
Basic Adobo Marinade Recipe
Ingredients You Need: soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, black pepper
The most basic adobo is made from these ingredients. Some like the bay or laurel leaf, others don’t but you can add this to the pot rather than the marinade since these are usually left whole. This is best when made at least the night before cooking.
Basic Teriyaki Sauce Recipe
Ingredients You Need: soy sauce, sugar, garlic, sesame oil
The Japanese teriyaki sauce is super flavorful and you can make it at home! While honey is the classic ingredient to use, you can swap it out and use brown sugar. All you need are soy sauce, brown sugar (for more flavor), crushed garlic, and the ever-important sesame oil. If you have sesame seeds on hand, these would be a great visual ingredient to add, too.
Want the sauce, too? All you have to do is simmer this mix to make a sauce that you can use a dipping sauce to serve on the side for more teriyaki flavor.
You can even tweak this sauce to include some grated ginger to make it into a basic bulgogi sauce.
Basic Inihaw Marinade Recipe
Ingredients You Need: calamansi, patis, garlic
If you have pork, chicken, or even seafood you want to grill, this is the perfect marinade to use! This simple and basic marinade will not only help your pork get tender, but it will also make it flavorful without overpowering whatever sauce you want to serve with it or will baste with it.
If you’re using this marinade for chicken, you don’t have to marinate it for very long. An hour should be more than enough time for the calamansi to do its tenderizing and flavoring job. If you’re using seafood such as shrimp, squid, or even fish, 15 minutes is ample time before you need to put these on the grill.
You can even use a similar marinade to make a fresh marinade for kinilaw. Add just vinegar, ginger, and chopped red chili peppers to the mix for a flavorful fresh taste.
Basic Barbecue Sauce Recipe
Ingredients You Need: tomato sauce, soy sauce, sugar, calamansi juice, black pepper, garlic
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Pinoy barbecue marinades may need a lemon-ilme soda in the marinade but if you don’t have it or can’t get it one way or another, this is a great alternative that’s just as tasty and tenderizing. Just mix tomato sauce, soy sauce, sugar, calamansi juice, pepper, and crushed garlic together in a large bowl together with your pork or chicken barbecue pieces and let it sit overnight before placing onto soaked bamboo skewers and grilling.
You can mix the same ingredients again, simmer it over medium heat until thickened, and either use it as the basting sauce or as more barbecue sauce to serve on the side for those who love their barbecue super saucy.
Feel free to tweak this basic recipe to include different kinds of spices to get that smoky, spicy, or all-around barbecue sauce that you want.
Basic Tapa Marinade Recipe
Ingredients You’ll Need: soy sauce, vinegar, garlic, black pepper, and sugar
If you think about it, the basic tapa marinade is similar to the adobo sauce. The big difference is really the amounts. A tapa marinade usually contains less soy sauce and more sugar. You can, of course, tweak these amounts so that when you make your own tapa marinade so it’s suited to your taste.
You can make so many kinds of marinades with just these ingredients. Feel free to experiment! Asian marinades are the most likely kind you can make with these ingredients, with a few additions here and there such as mirin for a Japanese marinade for a teppanyaki dish or gochujang or red pepper paste for a Korean barbecue marinade that’s perfect on the grill.
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