The Best Lemon Garlic Marinade Recipe
This flavorful lemon garlic marinade recipe is easy to whip up and only takes a few simple ingredients. It can be used on chicken, shrimp, veggies, & more!
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The Best Lemon Garlic Marinade Recipe
Yesterday, I finally got my barbecue out for the summer. Summer grilling is my favorite! While I love to try new recipe, I also have my favorites that I make over and over again all summer long.
This lemon garlic marinade is one of those recipes. It’s so unbelievably delicious and it works on so many things. For years, I only ever used it on chicken breast but I’ve recently started marinating shrimp and veggies as well.
In fact, yesterday I used the lemon garlic marinade to make some amazing grilled kabobs. I cut up some chicken breasts, zucchini, squash, and red onion. Then I marinaded the chicken and veggies separately. I also used the lemon garlic marinade on some shrimp as well.
Everything turned out so flavorful! The lemon and garlic in this marinade recipe work so well together. It’s really easy to whip up too!
Ingredient List for Lemon Garlic Marinade
You only need a couple of simple ingredients to make this lemon garlic marinade. Most of them you probably have at home which makes this pretty inexpensive to make.
- Juice and zest from one lemon
- 3 garlic cloves – minced
- 1 cup canola oil
- 1 tablespoon dried oregano
- 1 tablespoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
- water
How to Make Lemon Garlic Marinade
You’ll need a food processor, an immersion blender, or regular blender to make this marinade. I prefer to use my immersion blender because it’s the easiest to use and clean. All you need to do is put all your ingredients into the blender/food processor/cup and blend.
Then, add a bit of water in until you get a consistency of maple syrup. It doesn’t take that much water so start with about a 1/4 cup and then add more a little at a time from there until you get the consistency you need.
That’s it. Now you can use the garlic lemon marinade on chicken, pork, fish, shrimp, or veggies to make a delicious meal.
Tips For Using Your Marinade
There are different “rules” for using this marinade depending on what you plan to cook. The lemon in the recipe is so good but the acid in the lemons means you have to be aware of a couple of things.
- You need to use a glass dish or ziplock bag when making this recipe. The acid in the marinade will react in a bad way with a metal bowl or dish.
- A ziplock bag is best for this lemon garlic marinade because it’s easy to shake up the bag to coat the chicken (or whatever) evenly. You can use a glass dish but you might need to flip your main ingredient to make sure it soaks evenly.
- Chicken breasts can be soaked in the marinade over night which makes this great for big barbecues. It’s easy to do all the prep the night before and then simply throw the chicken breast on the grill when ready to cook.
- Chicken that’s been cut for kabobs doesn’t need to sit in the marinade as long as the breast do. A couple of hours is all they need for awesome flavor.
- The acid from the lemon can “cook” shrimp and fish so they need to sit in the marinade for much less time. 30 minutes is all they need. Any longer and the fish/shrimp can become mushy.
- Veggies can marinate over night or be tossed in the marinade right before going on the grill.
- I do use this lemon garlic recipe for grilling but you can also roast or pan fry your marinated food.
- Foods cooked in the lemon garlic marinade are great cold too so cook some extras and throw cold leftovers in salads. Try the grilled chicken in this Greek Orzo Pasta Salad. It’s delicious!
Try this Lemon Garlic Marinade recipe soon. I promise you’ll want to make it again and again all summer long.
Lemon Garlic Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 cup canola oil
- 3 cloves fresh garlic minced
- 1 whole lemon juice and zest
- 1 tbsp Dried Oregano
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
Instructions
- Mix marinade ingredients in food processor, blender, or with immersion blender for roughly 30 seconds.
- Add water to marinade until the consistency is about that of maple syrup, about 1/4 cup.
- Place chicken or other ingredient in glass dish or ziplock bag and pour marinade over.
- Marinate chicken over night. Fish and shrimp should marinate for no more than 30 minutes. Pork should marinate for at least 1 hour but 3 is better.
- Cook with your preferred method.
