Video:3 Easy Garlic Marinades

Transcript:3 Easy Garlic Marinades

Hi, I'm Caitlyn Becker for About.com. Today I'm going to show you how to make three easy and delicious garlic marinades.

Tips for Using Garlic in Marinades

It's not the best for date night cause you don't want to kiss anyone after this, but I promise they are going to be delicious. Garlic is a great center for a marinade because it is pungent enough to stand up to a lot of proteins and still delicate enough for vegetables or fish.

There's regular garlic, but I love using elephant garlic, which is this giant monster over here. It's a lot bigger but the flavor is more delicate, less pungent, but you still get that garlicky kick. For tools we will only need a bowl and a whisk.

Easy, Simple Garlic Marinade

First I'm going to show you how to make my super simple garlic marinade. This is my go-to marinade when I want to dress up a protein but don't have a lot of time. It's great because you should already have all of the ingredients in your pantry. We'll need a 1/4 cup of soy sauce, 2 tbsp of olive oil, 5 cloves of crushed garlic, and 2 tsp of black pepper. No salt because we have so much sodium in the soy sauce.

Combine the ingredients, mix them together and you're done! It's so easy. I love this marinade for a steak because I think the protein stands up to the garlic really well, especially a skirt steak or a flank steak. This is enough for about a 2lb flank steak. Throw your steak and marinade in a big Ziploc bag, my favorite thing to marinate in. Give it a squish and let hit hang out in the fridge from 4-8 hours.

Easy Smoky Roasted Garlic Marinade

Next I'm going to show you how to make a delicious smoky roasted garlic marinade. This is a rich smoky marinade that is impressive and decedent and great when the weather starts to cool down. We're going to need a whole bulb of garlic that we're going to roast, 1/2 cup of OJ, 1/2 cup of Dijon mustard, 2 tbsp honey, 2 tbsp olive oil, and 1 tsp fresh thyme. To roast our garlic we're going to slice the head off of the garlic bulb and then pour half of your olive oil over the garlic cloves. We're going to roast that on the grill on low heat for about 30 minutes until these bulbs turn to jelly.

Once the bulbs are cool, you're going to squeeze the garlic out, and then mix the rest of your ingredients to make the marinade. And that's it. This marinade works with everything, but I love it with shellfish. Today I'm going to use some shrimp. We're going to give it a little shake to coat. You don't want to marinate this for longer than 30 minutes, because the citrus will actually start cooking the shrimp.

Easy Garlic Lime Marinade

Finally, here is my garlic lime marinade. This is a perfect marinade for a hot summer day because the lime gives the garlic a light citrus twist. We'll need one clove of elephant garlic, 1/2 cup fresh lime juice, 1 tbsp of soy sauce, 1 tbsp Dijon mustard, a dash of cayenne, and 1/2 cup of olive oil. Combine everything together, mix, and you're done.

I love this with pork tenderloin because the pork is very light and flavorful. And you can also serve it room temperature on its own or sliced over a chilled bed of greens so it's great in the summer. Combine your pork tenderloin and your marinade in a Ziploc bag, squish it around and then you can leave it in the fridge for a couple of hours until you're ready to grill it.

And that's how you make three easy and delicious garlic marinades. For more recipes like this, visit About.com.