Cooking Basics | Herb Marinade

Hello & happy Tuesday!

I was thinking of posts I'd like to focus on for the new year and I think it would be good to visit some cooking recipe basics. As you can see from the post title, the recipe I'll be focusing on today will be an herb marinade.

What I love about making herb marinades (and one like this in particular) where there aren't any real measurements and you can just throw everything in a blender and voila! Marinade.

I sincerely just use whatever herbs I have in the fridge. For this marinade, I really just wanted to use up the herbs before they went bad.

Also, I heart oregano and since I didn't have the fresh stuff, there's nothing wrong with adding some of the dried herbs, as well. I also like to add some crushed red pepper flakes as it gives a great depth of flavor but you are more than welcome to omit this item if you're not a fan of spicy. 

Exactly what you see in the pictures above is exactly what you will need. Just in case, I'm going to lay it down for you in case you need a little reassurance. 

Basic Herb Marinade

Ingredient List

Herbs of choice. I used a small bunch each of:

• Parsley
• Thyme
• Rosemary
• Dill

Other Ingredients:

• Juice of 1 lemon
• 1/2 of a small onion (or 1/4 of a large onion), peeled and roughly chopped
• 5 cloves of garlic, peeled (you can add less if you're not into garlic - I LOVE garlic)
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon black pepper
• 1 pinch crushed red pepper flakes
• 1 tablespoon dried oregano leaves *optional

Prep

• All you need to prep your herbs is to remove the leaves from the stems. In all honesty, if you leave a tiny bit of stems, it's OK. The only herb you might have to worry about (in regards to stems) is the rosemary as their stem is really thick and woody.
• Add everything into the blender and blend!
• If you think that the marinade is a bit thick, you can always thin it out with either a bit more olive oil or more lemon juice.
• My biggest tip? Try your marinade! How else will you get a good feel of how it should taste and/or what it's missing? I usually find that I need to add a dash more salt to my marinade.

What it can be used for

• Chicken (like I show in the picture up there ^^)
• Vegetables like cauliflower, carrots, etc.
• Steak
• Tofu (like marinading and then grilling tofu -delicious!)

Storage

• I usually place the remaining marinade in a plastic ziploack bag and freeze it. We use it semi-often and find it freezes well for up to a month. You can just break off what you need and defrost it before marinading your item of choice in it :)
• You can also freeze it in individual ice cube trays (I saw this tip/trick on Pinterest). This way it is pre-portioned out and you can just pop out what you need when you need it.

So, that's it! I hope you enjoyed this cooking basics post for Herb Marinade. Let me know if you happen to have any questions and I'll be seeing you soon!

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Until next time-

❤❤❤

-Jannelle