The Unconventional Ingredient Adam Richman Uses For More Tender Meat

Tenderizing meat is no easy task, especially when you're working with a particularly tough cut, such as chuck or round. As Exploratorium explains, certain meats are tougher than others due to the high amount of collagen in the muscle fibers. Muscles that work harder contain more collagen, and that's precisely what makes their meat chewy when cooked. 

You can't remove collagen from meat to make it more tender, but you can break it down into gelatin. This is usually done by slow-cooking the meat, but per MasterClass, using a marinade or meat mallet can be just as effective. A marinade works by using acids such as lemon juice and vinegar to break down the collagen. A meat mallet, on the other hand, perforates the muscle fibers, which locks in added moisture and sauce, resulting in a more juicy meat.

Each of these methods are proven ways to tenderize meat, but according to celebrity chef Adam Richman, there's a better way to go about it.

Adam Richman tenderizes his meat by slow-cooking it, but he also adds an ingredient you might not expect: soda. The longtime  "Man v. Food" host shared with Today that he learned the technique from his mother and his grandmother, who taught him to use either Coca-Cola or ginger ale when working with tough meats. 

"My mom would rest a brisket on sliced white onion, and use either of the aforementioned sodas as both marinade and basting liquid," Richman said to Today. But it isn't just brisket that this technique works on. Richman says he does it with short ribs too, but he opts for root beer instead of Coke or ginger ale.

Though it may be uncommon, cooking with soda isn't unheard of. Coca-Cola is often used in pulled pork because the sugars caramelize during the cooking process, giving the meat the perfect balance of sweetness, Insanely Good Recipes explains. What most people don't realize, however, is that soda has an effect on the tenderness of the meat, too.

Soda tenderizes meat because it works the same way a marinade does, by breaking down the muscle fibers with an acid. The acid in soda is phosphoric acid, Southern Kitchen says, and its acidity is comparable to that of lemon juice. Whereas lemon juice has a pH of 2, soda has a pH of 2.7, Epicurious shares. When meat is soaked in soda, therefore, it's like marinating it in lemon juice. The phosphoric acid denatures the proteins in the meat, ultimately causing it to become tender.

Due to its high acidity, a little bit of soda goes a long way. Using too much soda in your marinade or letting the meat sit in it for any longer than eight hours and you risk being mushy rather than tender. For best results, Adam Richman recommends using one can of soda for each pound of meat. His grandmother's recipe (via YouTube) specifically calls for four cans of soda — three ginger ale and one coke — per four pounds of brisket. 

Richman also balances out the acidity and sweetness with soy sauce, garlic, and onion, yielding meat that has the perfect flavor and melt-in-your mouth texture.