Coconut aminos- Where have I been?
My prep routine has been changed forever!
So, each week, I marinate pounds and pounds of meat in a variety of different flavors. My number one go to is the Grill Mates line. I use their Wine, Garlic & Herb, Bourbon Brown Sugar, Mojito Lime, Baja Citrus, and Mesquite marinades a few times a month. It’s helpful to have the meat marinated beforehand so that I can pull the meat and the put it right on the heat.
Inflation
Currently, the marinade packets are $0.99 at my closest grocer- they were $2+ a few months back. The store I shop at the most doesn’t sell these packets for under $3. The stores I frequent for pickups don’t carry these items at all. One day while checking out it hit me, I should begin making my own marinades. The packets aren’t necessarily fresh, I have no control over the ingredients, the cost of EACH packet adds additional costs to EACH meal but didn’t know where to start.
Coconut Aminos to the rescue!
Typically, MOST things require soy as an ingredient, and I cannot have soy. So, I needed to research for a replacement ingredient and was able to find a product that is used as a soy substitute called Coconut Aminos. For some reason the name sounds familiar, but I’d thought I came across it in a hair conditioning recipe- or maybe I’m just thinking about silk aminos LOL. So away with the packets and onto these coconut aminos!
My marinade faves
I usually like a wine marinade, being from the South I love a smoky marinade, and herby/zesty flavors as well. After researching what I needed for marinades: Acids- I usually use Balsamic, white, and apple cider vinegars. Oil which is basically the fat- I always use Olive oil, and the herbs or spices I’d settled on. For the mesquite I used my dry rub recipe and added it to water and oil since I didn’t need acid for that flavor. Some individuals do add an acid to their BBQ marinades- I didn’t for this particular batch.
The results!
I made the 4 following marinades:
1. An everyday marinade- to be used as my quick go to as I have ALL of these ingredients 100% of the time.
2. Zesty herb marinade- to be used on meats to top salads.
3. Citrus marinade- to be used on meat for “bowl” night.
4. Teriyaki marinade- to be used in stir-fry since I hadn’t been able to have it in so long in an attempt to avoid soy.
I discovered I needed a larger capacity food processor. I had to do quite a bit of chopping and working my ingredients in multiple batches because my mini food processor (Wal-Mart black 2013 Friday special) was too small to hold all of the ingredients at the same time. Check out this video for the ingredients and any bloopers I had while mixing the marinades. The teriyaki was my favorite! It browned nicely and was slightly sweet. The second pheasant is still stored away.
