Any cut of meat can be marinated– whether it’s beef, pork or chicken. Even seafood and fish do well in marinades, and this technique helps to ensure flavor is found throughout the cut. For this truffle oil marinated steak, we used a handful of simple and staple ingredients to amp up the flavor in our chosen cut– a hanger steak. This simple and quick marinade will quickly become a favorite at your house with family and friends.

Marinating Makes the Difference

There’s a science behind marinating that is important to understand, and as usual I turn to my trusted source for culinary information– the Serious Eats website.

In the chapter about marinating, they talk about the purpose behind marinating and how important it can be to making a great dish. As mentioned, one of the reasons you marinate is to get flavors of your dish throughout the meat. This happens as the little bits and pieces of the marinade (or the liquid of it) seep into the fibers of the meat. Ideally, its stays in there and your meat has great flavor throughout.

Additionally, some of the purpose of marinating is to tenderize the meat. This happens when using acid (not unlike when ceviche is made) and the acid breaks down some of the protein fibers in the food. But you want to be careful– marinating in acid for a long time can create mushy food. And finally, you can marinate to ensure that moisture is added and preserved in the cook. Not unlike the process of brining a chicken or turkey. I love to dry brine poultry- like in this recipe- but a wet brine is essentially a pretty salty marinade too.

Using a combination of simple and gourmet ingredients, you’re able to create an amazing flavor on your steak. This marinade could work on any number of cuts– so experiment to see what you like the best.

PRIMARY INGREDIENTS

For this particular recipe, I used stuff we had on hand to create the marinade. I knew I wanted to have something with truffle oil, and similarly strong flavors of horseradish, shallot and balsamic vinegar all worked well to balance each other out!

1 tablespoon of my Garlic Junkie seasoning by Spiceology
1 tablespoon Truff Truffle Oil- or your favorite truffle oil
Chopped Shallots- Smoke your shallots on the Traeger for 15 minutes before using for extra flavor
1 teaspoon of prepared horseradish
1/4 cup olive oil
1/4 cup balsamic vinegar
Fresh basil

Mix all ingredients in a dish and then add your steak. For this cook, I used a hanger steak from Snake River Farms.

I like to marinate my steaks for at least one hour but a few hours works as well. Marinating for too long can cause the meat to become mushy.

After I marinated the steak I pulled it out and patted the steak dry.

I then seasoned with Snake River’s Rosemary Roast seasoning. I used a Sous Vide method to cook this steak but a reverse sear will also work great.

A marinade in a bath of strongly flavored ingredients (even for 20 minutes or so) can yield amazing results for your cook. Any cut of steak can be treated this way, but one of my favorites to marinate is flank steak or skirt steak.

Try out this flank steak marinade for similarly tasty results.