Greek chicken marinade can be made from scratch or purchased pre-packaged. Common ingredients include garlic, olive oil, black pepper, lemon/lime juice, oregano, mustard, rosemary, and thyme. Other options include sumac. Improvisation is required when making a marinade from scratch. Salad dressings can also be used as marinades. Commercial varieties range in sweetness and calorie density.
Selecting the best Greek chicken marinade mostly boils down to finding a blend of flavors that fits the Greek culinary tradition and is pleasing to the palates of people who eat cooked chicken. Many cooks prefer to make a Greek chicken marinade from scratch, using the blend of ingredients they find most palatable. In some cases, however, cooks don’t have the time or inclination to make a homemade marinade and prefer to purchase a prepackaged variety.
A Greek chicken marinade can be made with almost any combination of spices and other flavors used in Greek cooking. Some of these ingredients are common to ethnic cuisines throughout the Mediterranean world. Garlic and olive oil are almost always part of a Greek chicken marinade, and black pepper is very common. Lemon and sometimes lime juice is often added. Oregano, mustard, rosemary and thyme are all common ingredients in this type of marinade.
Other options are less well known outside the eastern Mediterranean. Sumac, for example, is a common food in the Middle East. It gives a distinctive, pleasantly bitter flavor to dishes and is often used to flavor chicken dishes. It is not well known in Europe and the Americas but is widely available and quite cheap.
When making a marinade from scratch, a certain amount of improvisation is required. Most marinades are based on a liquid base, mostly made up of olive oil. This base is enriched with various types of toppings. Cooks making a marinade from scratch may want to select several different recipes and make small batches of each to compare. Some cooks may also want to create fusion-style marinades, adding ingredients from other culinary traditions that blend well with a Greek chicken marinade.
Cooks who don’t wish to make a marinade from scratch have plenty of options. Salad dressings are often billed as marinades as well. These are often useful as basic preparations consisting of oil, vinegar and simple spice combinations. An enterprising cook on a budget can spice up one of these basic marinades by adding a handful of fresh spices.
Products designed to be used as marinades are also sold. A customer should consider what spices they would like in a packaged marinade and should also consider how sweet they want a marinade. Commercial varieties range from the almost unsweetened to heavily sugared and calorie-dense range.
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