How To Tenderize Meat Mess-Free With A Mallet

Tenderizing meat by using a meat mallet is a good technique to use if you’re making things like chicken cutlets, tonkatsu, or any type of roulade (like with these Midwestern steak birds). It helps ensure that every piece of meat you’re cooking has the same uniform thickness plus it makes your final dish easier to eat and chew. Whacking a chicken breast with a tenderizer is simple enough, but there’s one step you won’t want to skip while doing it.

You’ll want to keep the meat covered with plastic wrap, wrap it in parchment paper, or put it in a resealable plastic bag — just don’t hit the meat directly with the tenderizer. That’s because you don’t want to make a mess. Trust me: I’m guilty of skipping this step and I’ve regretted it every time. Cleaning meat bits off the wall, my clothes, all the junk I have laying around my kitchen, and my glasses is a humbling experience that I don’t want you to have to deal with. It’s worth the slight extra step of covering the meat.

If you’re looking to simply soften up a tough cut of meat but you don’t need to flatten it per se, you can use what’s known as a blade tenderizer. These manual tools pierce your ingredient with a series of thin, needle-like blades, puncturing the meat and tenderizing it in a process called “swissing.” This is what happens to a raw cube steak before you purchase it from the grocery store, albeit the grocery store uses a decidedly more industrial version of the home tool.

A blade tenderizer sounds scary, but thankfully, the blades only come out when you push down on the handle, so you don’t have to worry about inadvertently tenderizing your fingers. The one thing a blade tenderizer doesn’t do, however, is flatten your meat. So, if you’re looking to make cutlets, a blade tenderizer isn’t the proper option. And if you don’t think you’ll be using a tenderizer nearly enough to justify buying one, well, you can always use a skillet to do the same thing.