Summer is the best season to eat both healthy, light and for cheap! Indeed, this is the perfect season to make gourmet, tender and flavored dishes on a shoestring budget. Vegetables, lean meat, fish, fresh fruit… You just have to enhance these simple ingredients so they can show you their true colors under the sun of summer! Here are 5 tips to make the best marinades for your summer dishes!
Whether for barbecuing, grilling or searing in a skillet, meat and fish exale a perfume of vacation when you flavor them with spices herbs and lemon! You have two options to concoct marinades with what you have available in your pantry: the dry marinade made with spices and the liquid marinade made of liquid: oil, vinegar, soy sauce, wine, fruit juice, alcohol… to which you add spices, herbs, garlic, onions, mustard, yogurt…
1. For white meat — poultry, turkey: prepare a marinade with a mix of yoghurt, lemon juice and garlic. Leave overnight in the refrigerator. You’ll see the difference the day after! Another cheap and original idea: The Coca Cola marinade! Mix soda, ketchup, mustard, garlic, honey and herbs. Let marinate for 1 hour and you’ll get chicken skewers that rock!
2. Marinades for fish: fish marinade are quite handy when you use citrus (orange, lemon) because it partially cook the fish with acidity! Collect various vinegars (balsamic, raspberry) and olive oil that you mix with lemon juice, garlic and some spices (paprika, curry). Brush your salmon fillets with this mix, let rest in a cool place for a few hours and flip fillets from time to time.
3. Marinating vegetables: Rub olive oil and herbs on vegetables (tomatoes, eggplant, zucchini). This is a tasty way to roast vegetable in the oven! You can also keep them to garnish your picnic sandwiches!
4. Fruit marinades: You can also marinate fruit, just try this mix: cinnamon, fennel, rum, orange blossom water. To make fruit skewers or salads, marinated fruits are your best friends this summer.
5. Choose a baking dish or a freezer bag and cut your meat or fish into small pieces that you will soak to thoroughly into the marinade.
