Well, you may never have thought of using it this way, but tea can be used both in cooking – to deglaze – and for marinating meat, and much more besides. Let’s take a look at some of its possible uses in the kitchen.

We’re used to thinking of tea as a warm, comforting drink or a refreshing, invigorating one, depending on the season, but in reality it lends itself to many more uses in the kitchen.
It can be used for marinades, to deglaze (instead of lemon juice or wine) and more. Obviously, we can’t use it on every dish, but there are some it’s particularly suited to, such as delicious meat or fish dishes, or vegan recipes that might be worth trying.

Marinating meat or fish with tea

Tea can be used to prepare tasty marinades for various cuts of meat, as well as for fish and shellfish.
Black teas, with their more intense flavour, pair best with meat dishes, whilst the more delicate or fermented varieties are better suited to seafood.
The ginger and green tea marinade featured on Melarossa.it is also worth a try.
Did you know that tea can also be used to marinate eggs? We’ll return to this topic later with a dedicated feature, so if you’re curious, keep an eye on our blog.

Tea marinades for vegan dishes too

We’ve focused mainly on meat and fish, but tea can also be used to prepare marinades for tofu and tempeh.
From this perspective, among the recipes we decided to try out, we’d like to highlight the curry soup with tea-marinated tofu from La Piccola Quaglia. As for tempeh, we couldn’t find any recipes that particularly caught our eye, but if you love experimenting in the kitchen, we recommend trying a marinade made with Earl Grey or Lapsang Souchong tea.
Of course, tea can be used in many other dishes, but for this feature we have chosen to focus on marinades, which are perhaps less well-known than other options.