The Pizza Cutter Hack For Tenderized Meat In A Pinch

If you're a meat eater, you probably know the feeling of spending hours marinating and cooking the perfect piece of meat — and that long-awaited first bite. It's tender, perfectly cooked, and cuts like butter; it's exactly what you wanted. But to get there, you likely had to tenderize the meat before it started cooking. If you find that you don't have a meat tenderizer, you can get the job done with a surprising kitchen tool: a pizza cutter.

Pizza cutters are round with small, sharp edges that act as little knives to help cut through doughy pizza crust. But that isn't their only use. Their sharp edges are great for perforating meat, which is a big part of the tenderization process. 

The next time you're looking for an easy way to help meat soak up a marinade, just run a pizza cutter along the outside of that chicken or steak.

Typically, meat is tenderized using a meat tenderizer, which is a hammer-like tool, sometimes with spikes or sharp edges, that flattens and perforates the meat. While it might seem like something people do just to release a little frustration, hitting the meat with this mallet actually has three important purposes. 

It evens the meat's thickness, which means all parts of the cut will cook to the same temperature at the same time; this helps avoid spots being over- or under-done. It also softens the meat by breaking down collagen. And if your tenderizer has sharp edges, it will perforate the meat, which allows marinades to better infiltrate the meat, making it more flavorful and more tender.

A pizza cutter won't necessarily do a great job of evening the meat's thickness or breaking down collagen. But if you have a cut of meat that doesn't need to be flattened, a pizza cutter is a great option for poking those little holes that will help the marinade seep in. If you use this method, tenderize the meat against the grain for the deepest perforation.

Although a pizza cutter won't work for softening meat, it can be used in tandem with a hammer or other heavy object if you don't have an actual tenderizer. The heavier object can be used to even out the meat and to tenderize it, alongside using the pizza cutter to create tiny holes. But how does a tenderizer soften meat?

A heavy meat tenderizer unbuckles the collagen that's within the meat's tissue. When you hit the meat with this hammer-like object, those collagen proteins get broken up, reducing some of that toughness. The result is a much more tender cut of meat. 

You don't need to tenderize every cut of meat, though. Something like a filet doesn't need to be tenderized. However, if you're cooking a tougher meat, like a chuck steak, it's worth the extra step to soften it with a tenderizer. If you're planning to just use a marinade to break down the meat, a pizza cutter is a great alternative.