How To Velvet Steak With Water And Baking Soda

Over the past year or so, shoppers in the U.S. might have noticed something alarming taking place at the grocery store: food prices went up, seemingly without end. Gone are the days of scrambled eggs as a guaranteed cheap and easy meal. And if you thought convenience items like frozen foods were immune, think again. Inflation has changed America's eating habits, and the way foods are sold, too. Companies have fought inflation with shrinkflation, and customers swapped out name-brand ingredients for generic items.

That's because one of the easiest ways to save money when prices are high and the budget is tight is to change what you buy. If your family loves steak, this doesn't mean you have to give it up, but it does make sense to relinquish the ribeye in favor of a more economical cut. The only issue there is that those cheaper pieces of beef can often be tougher than their more luxe counterparts. But thanks to a simple method called velveting, home cooks can make tough beef tender, so that sitting at the table doesn't have to mean dwelling on the food budget while struggling to finish chewing a steak.

According to MasterClass, the secret to wrangling those tough cuts of beef and making them tender is using baking soda to tenderize the sliced meat before it's cooked, in a process called velveting. Baking soda "prevents muscle proteins from tightening up overly as they cook, which means that when your beef cooks, it doesn't expel as much moisture. So it stays juicier," cookbook author J. Kenji López-Alt explained in an interview (via Wired).

Velveting is a technique commonly used in Chinese stir-fries, where economical cuts of beef are often called for. The meat is marinated in baking soda and sometimes water, then left to sit for about a half hour. The baking soda is rinsed off, the meat is patted dry, and it's ready to be cooked. It can be further marinated in liquid to infuse the meat with flavor, or it can be cooked up right away. The beef velveting technique can be used with inexpensive cuts like London broil, sirloin tip steak, eye of round, and more. Just make sure to also slice your meat against the grain, as some of these inexpensive cuts have long muscle fibers, which can otherwise be chewy. With the right velveting and slicing technique, the dream of tender beef on a budget can be a reality.