The Pantry Ingredient You Need To Break Out For Tender Steaks

Armed with the correct know-how, you can make all the right moves for juicy, scrumptious meat — from finding the perfect steak at the store and choosing the very best cuts to the most crucial step for perfect steak (resting the meat after it's prepared). One key technique will help you achieve supremely tender beef, and it requires just one pantry ingredient.

For the inside track on this tip, Food Republic spoke with Robbie Shoults, celebrity chef, third-generation owner of Bear Creek Smokehouse, and owner of Marshall Mercantile and High Horse 1898. What ingredient did Shoults endorse? "Baking soda is a good product to use to tenderize steaks," he said.

While other tenderizing methods break down steak's connective fibers, baking soda works differently. It creates a chemical reaction when it comes in contact with the meat, changing the composition of the steak's fibers, increasing the pH levels on the meat's surface, and raising its alkalinity. This restricts bonding between the proteins, keeping the steak's connective fibers looser as it cooks. The meat then better retains its juices, effectively creating a much more tender piece of beef.

Using baking soda to make your steak tender is easy. It also doesn't take a lot of time, and the effect on your cooked meat is well worth the little bit of extra effort. Just start by making a small slurry.

"The best way to make this happen is to mix up a slurry of 1 teaspoon baking soda to ½ cup of water," Robbie Shoults explained. "Mix this well, add the steak, and let it sit for about 15 minutes at room temperature. Rinse thoroughly and pat dry." Make sure you use fresh baking soda — not the one sitting open in your refrigerator to absorb odors. Any smells your soda has taken on will impact the taste of your steak. An unexpired powder taken fresh from the package is best.

Once you've completed the slurry, soak, and rinse process, you're ready to move forward with preparing your steak as usual. "Now it's time to add the seasonings or marinade!" Shoults said. 

He added that the baking soda technique is most effective for certain cuts of steak. "Baking soda does work best on thinner cuts of meat like flank or skirt steak," Shoults shared. For a steak that is more than a half-inch thick or so, other tenderizing methods are best, as the soda doesn't soak deeply into meat like, say, using a marinade.