Are Brines And Marinades The Same Thing?

When you're cooking with a leaner, tougher cut of meat, whether it be poultry, beef, pork, or fish, retaining as much moisture as possible is vital to ensure it comes out juicy and succulent — not dry and chewy. One of the keys to moist meat is tenderization, the breakdown of tough muscle fibers and connective tissues. Tenderization is crucial because, when meat is exposed to high heat, the proteins in these fibers bind tighter and seize up, squeezing out moisture.

There are two miraculous liquid solutions associated with tenderization: brines and marinades. Soaking meat in a brine or marinade causes it to absorb extra moisture or flavoring and can help denature its proteins. Casual cooks may use these terms interchangeably, but, although they are similar in many ways, brines and marinades tenderize through somewhat different methods and serve slightly different purposes.

Brining means soaking meat in a mixture of salt, water, and possibly a little sugar or additional aromatics. It works to infuse moisture and flavor into meat through osmosis, and the salt in the solution is key to altering the molecular structure of the meat's proteins. Marinating, on the other hand, also involves soaking meat in a liquid solution to impart flavor and potentially tenderize, but the key ingredient in a marinade is acid. Brines and marinades are typically used in different circumstances, and it all depends on whether your primary goal is moisture or flavor.

For thousands of years, before the advent of refrigeration, brining was used as a method of preservation. It is sometimes known as "wet-curing," since curing uses salt to preserve meat by drawing out moisture. That might sound completely counterintuitive — how could a method that was originally used to preserve food by drying it out actually be the best way to pack it with moisture?

The distinction comes down to the amount of salt in your solution. An "extreme" brine uses a super-saturated salt solution to draw out moisture, but a gentle brine with a much lower concentration of salt follows the laws of osmosis, which means that salt will transfer from the liquid into the protein, until its salt concentration is equal to that of the brine. That relatively low amount of salt can then unravel and collapse the protein structure of your meat's tissue and muscle fibers, actually allowing more water to enter the meat.

Wet brines contain water and salt along with any other flavor enhancers, though there is also a method of "dry brining," which uses salt alone to seal in moisture in skin-on cuts of meat like a juicy roast chicken. Meat may be left to soak in a liquid brine for anywhere between 20 minutes to two days, depending on the type and cut of meat, but typically, the brine is rinsed off or the meat's surface is left to dry out before cooking. You don't usually want to cook meat that is still covered in brining solution, as it will taste excessively salty.

Marinades are known best for the flavor they bring to a meat dish, and by all accounts, that is their main purpose. Marinades are usually made with oils, herbs, and spices, and ingredients that are either acidic (like vinegar or citrus juice) or enzymatic (such as papaya or yogurt). Chefs coat their meat in a marinade for hours prior to cooking, and often the meat is cooked in the marinade as a kind of a sauce, though not always.

However, as food scientists note, the purpose of marinating is twofold: not only to flavor the meat, but to tenderize it. Acids are known to denature the proteins in tough cuts of meat, which is why it's sometimes said that acidic marinades partially "cook" the meat (note that marinating on its own won't cook your meat to a safe temperature for consumption, though).

That said, there is some controversy surrounding the ability of acidic marinades to truly tenderize meat, and the scientific consensus seems to be that they can only really penetrate a shallow layer of the meat. Don't assume that means that marinades don't do anything, however — deeply flavoring the outer area of the meat still transforms its taste and makes it extra-juicy. As a result of this science, thin, flat cuts of meat like tri-tip steak do best with marination. Be careful not to over-marinate, as well. Marinating for longer than a day won't allow the acid to penetrate deeper — it can just make your meat mushy.