You Only Need 3 Ingredients For A Perfect Marinade Every Time

For flavor-packed, juicy, tender meat, you don't need a dozen ingredients or a complicated marinade recipe. In fact, three simple pantry staples — soy sauce, olive oil, and lemon juice — are all you need to create a delicious, no-fuss marinade. Whether you are prepping chicken, pork, steak, tofu, or fish, this easy-to-make marinade trio delivers balance, depth, and crave-worthy taste with minimal effort. It literally takes seconds to prepare.

Soy sauce offers a rich umami flavor, saltiness, and just a hint of sweetness. It helps create that deep, savory taste that makes grilled or pan-seared food so incredibly satisfying. Lemon juice offers lightness, brightness, and acidity that tenderizes the meat while cutting through its richness. Olive oil serves as the fat in the marinade, it also helps tenderize while distributing the flavors. Together, they strike a beautiful balance, creating a marinade that's as simple as it gets.

To make this marinade, combine soy sauce, olive oil, and lemon juice in a bowl. A 3:1:1 ratio (3 parts oil, and 1 part each of the other ingredients) does the trick. This fat-to-acid-to-seasoning ratio can also be used in other marinade recipes. Place your protein in a plastic bag or shallow dish, pour the marinade over it, and let it soak.

When figuring out how long to marinate your protein, timing is everything. Let it go too short, and the flavor barely sinks in. But too much time in the marinade isn't necessarily a good thing either and can cause mushiness and overflavoring. A quick soak of 15 to 30 minutes is enough to impart flavor to seafood without turning it rubbery. Chicken breasts are a bit sturdier and do well with about 2 hours in the marinade to get flavorful. Pork loin benefits from more time, around 4 hours, to allow the flavors to penetrate its thicker cut. For beef, particularly tougher cuts, let it marinate for 24 hours.

While one of the great benefits of this simple marinade is how quickly it comes together, you can get creative by adding garlic, chili flakes, or honey. There are many types of honey to experiment with, from buckwheat to clover. You can read our guide to different kinds of honey to learn more. And if you're looking for a nice side dish that complements the marinade spirit, consider marinating your onion rings in this same 3-part recipe. Marinating your onions imparts flavor and makes them softer so they don't slip out of the breading when you bite in. Just be sure not to reuse leftover marinade unless it's been boiled. But with just three ingredients, you can whip up another batch of this marinade in no time. You might never go back to store-bought marinades!