Why You Should Add Baking Soda to Your Ground Beef



Aesthetically speaking, ground meat is not the most pleasing of animal proteins. When raw, it's all squishy and speckled, and more often than not, cooking it just transforms the pink, soft stuff into grey, nubby stuff. This can be mitigated by leaving it alone and letting the meat (ground beef, ground turkey, etc.) develop a nice sear before breaking it up into little bits, but even that doesn’t help lessen the loss of moisture you typically see when cooking ground beef. Fortunately, there’s a handy little chemical that solves both of these issues. It’s called sodium bicarbonate — otherwise known as baking soda — and adding it to your ground beef helps keep it tender while also speeding up the browning process. Why does this work? The baking soda raises the pH of the meat, preventing the proteins from bonding excessively — and thus squeezing water out. That keeps everything nice and tender, preventing that pool of liquid from forming. As for the ratio, it’s recommended that you use ¼ teaspoon for every 12 ounces of ground meat, and a whole teaspoon for every 12 ounces of sliced meat. Mixing the baking soda with a tablespoon or two of water can help evenly distribute it. Toss the raw meat with the baking soda, wait 15 minutes, then cook it like you normally would.