How to Prepare Soft Meat for Seniors

With age come a few health conditions and sometimes fewer teeth or sensitive gums. You don’t have to give up your favorite meat dishes though. With the right preparation and cooking techniques, you can continue to enjoy your favorite cuts of meat without ruining your grill – the one in your mouth.

There are several cooking techniques and preparation styles to yield tender and flavorful chicken, pork, or beef. Here, I present the best techniques to create soft meat for seniors, while also talking about the importance of temperature control and how selecting the right cuts of meat can make all the difference.

Cooking Methods to Prepare Soft Meat for Seniors

Cooking methods have an important role in shaping the meat to the desired form. There are a few methods that can help soften the meat and can make it convenient for seniors.

Marinating

Marinating is an excellent way to tenderize and soften meat. It’s also a great way to build and retain flavor in your meat. Marinades usually have an acidic or a citrus element, which breaks down the muscle fibers. You can select from a variety of wet or dry marinades. Dry rubs, brine, or marinade works faster in achieving tender poultry than basic seasoning. I’ve found that all are effective.

Brining

Brining is a technique in which a cut of meat is immersed in a solution of salt and water for a while. The salt in brine breaks down the protein to hold on to moisture, preventing it from drying out. The brining process is ideal for lean meats like chicken and turkey.

Meats like lamb or beef with higher fat content are better off with a dry brine. As a rule of thumb, it takes about one hour per pound of meat to finish brining. You can go longer, but keep in mind that it’s possible to over-brine your meat. Signs that it was over-brined is that it’ll taste over-seasoned and will be mushy.

Physically Tenderizing

Tenderizing any type of meat can also be accomplished physically, by taking a mallet or some type of utensil and smacking it until it’s noticeably thinner and softer. This is one of the easiest ways to prepare soft meat for seniors.

No mallet? No problem. Encase the piece of meat with saran wrap and hit it with a skillet, pot, or bottom of a cup. This method can also be used for chicken that’s going to wrap around seafood or for grilling. Mexican dishes like milanesa call for chicken or beef that has been physically tenderized before being lightly breaded.

Keep in mind that the thinner you tenderize it, the faster it may cook.

Slow Cooker and Crockpot

Another form of preparing your meat, is the low and slow method using a slow cooker and crockpot. This “set it and forget it“ method is a practical and favorite one for busy caregivers. It’s one of the easiest ways of making very flavorful and tasty dishes that are not only tender but let all ingredients inside the pot really absorb each other’s flavors. You still need to add all your favorite seasonings.

One of the greatest benefits of using a slow cooker is that you can use frozen poultry. Be mindful that all poultry should be thoroughly rinsed before cooking (or prior to freezing). If you have an Instant Pot, this too is a quick way to cook soft meat for seniors that stays juicy.

Temperature Control

Poultry tends to have less fat than beef or pork, so it tends to cook completely differently. If you don’t plan on frying it, it doesn’t have that much protection from an open flame, pan, grill, or oven.

From experience, I’ve had better luck with higher heat to get that sear and flavor, and then moving the cut of meat off the fire source for indirect cooking. This will vary drastically if you’re dealing with a grill because of its fluctuating temperatures versus a stove or an oven, which you can regulate.

Hopefully, you have a good handle on the power of your cooking source, whether that’s a grill, stove, stovetop. You’ll get accustomed and adjust your cooking time as you get a better idea of how your cooking source cooks variations of meat, along with treated versus untreated meat.

Brisket was an unfavorable type of meat until grill masters found the best cooking method. The low and slow method revolutionized this cut of meat and makes it most delicious – highlighting the importance of experimenting until you find just the right way of cooking your meat. 

Know Your Meat

Selecting the proper type and cut of meat is another skill set that can help you choose cuts that are destined for soft and chewable dishes that don’t require an extra pair of canine teeth.

It goes without saying that you never want to ignore the expiration date. Buy and cook the meat before its use by date.

Pay attention to the visual marbleization, especially when purchasing beef. It’s graded by the marbleization. A heavily marbled cut of meat will be higher quality and most likely cost more.

The color of meat is a more questionable approach at gauging the quality of meat. Against your instinct, brighter and redder cuts of meat don’t always translate into better quality. Besides, I’m sure you all know that many stores add some coloring to their meat to help them sell.  

When your wallet permits, it’s always a good idea to get chummy with your local butcher. Although a bit pricier, they’ll most likely always provide a higher quality of meat than your local chain grocery store. You’ll usually get higher than choice quality meat (considered the average) at your local butcher.

Chicken

Unlike its barnyard friends, if cooked wrong this meat will get dry and tough, even when it is marinated. White meat is soft as compared to the dark meat. The dark meat will take more time in marinating than the white.

Because of its increased fat content, dark meat has slightly more fat and calories than white meat. Dark meat also has a higher iron, zinc, riboflavin, thiamine, and vitamin B-12 content than white meat. White meat is lean and flavorful, but it dries up quickly if cooked too long.

Dark meat is tastier and juicier and can be cooked for extended periods. White meat, which includes the breasts, need to be watched closely while cooking

I prefer to marinate the chicken for at least an hour. You may get away with 30 minutes, but the longer it swims in the marinade, the deeper the flavor.

You can cut your chicken breasts in half lengthwise to allow more surface area to simmer in the marinade to add more flavor.

You can marinade chicken with pickle juice or buttermilk, which has been done in the South for many generations resulting in scrumptious and juicy chicken. For an overview and recipe for using pickle juice for brining, watch Kardea Brown here.

Pork

All the methods around marinating, and tenderizing used for chicken are just as effective with pork. Pork pairs exceptionally well with citrus marinades.

Because of pork’s high fat content in practically every part of the pig, it’s quite forgiving when you cook it. Even though it is easier to cook because of that, it is still possible to dry it out and get tough. The fat provides flavor, but more importantly, protects it from drying out.

I tend to use a combination of sweet and savory for best taste and consistency. My go-to blend for marinating pork is simple: brown sugar, salt, pepper, garlic, and paprika. Others like to add pineapple juice. You can choose dry or wet marinade. I prefer the pork shoulder (Boston butt) for some delicious pulled pork.

The crockpot or pressure cooker are good choices to ensure you end up with fall-off-the-bone pork savory goodness. For the absolute best flavor, smoking the pork is my favorite approach, hands down. For additional guidance on the process of smoking incredible fall-off-the-bone pork or all things BBQ, visit Smokin’ and Grillin’ with AB. He’s mastered temperature control and process for making pulled pork.

Beef

Unless we’re talking about ground beef, this is the easiest one to get wrong.  There’s a lot of connective tissue on the meat to contend with. However, you can definitely make some of the most tender meat if prepared and cooked properly.

Unlike pork, marinades for beef do better with a savory marinade versus citrus, although I have had used both successfully. I highly recommend marinading beef for as long as you possibly can to ensure that the meat is broken down as much as possible. The length of time will vary by weight.

Out of the many cuts of beef, from chuck roast to fillet mignon, you’ll find that veal is the most tender.

• Chuck or flank is one of the least fatty cuts.
• Ribs have a balanced amount of fat and protein, so it is considered among the most flavorful types of meat.
• Veal comes from the legs of mostly male dairy calves. Veal meat requires little prep to achieve tenderness.
• Filet mignon is another example of a cut of beef that doesn’t have to be marinated because it already soft quality meat.
• Ground meat is always a safe choice for soft meat. You can purchase ground meat at from 70/30 ratio, where 30% is the fat consistency, to about 97/3, where the ground beef contains only 3% fat.

Mexicans used marinating as a means for cooking some of the most popular dishes today. Take carne asada, for example. Usually made from flank steak, which is among the toughest meat out there. However, when marinaded in lime and other spices for a few hours, this tough meat has made carne asada famous worldwide. Without it, you’d likely be chewing what feels like rubber.

Check out the Salty Cocina Mexican Food for an easy marinade for carne asada.

In Conclusion 

You’ll find the methods I’ve listed above can definitely work when practiced and especially when combined to achieve delicious flavorful soft meat for seniors. Take your chosen marinating process into consideration, though, as it will affect your cooking time.

I highly recommend extending the marinating period when you plan on grilling anything. Grilling and smoking meats involves a harsh environment. You want to make sure the flavors of what you’re seasoning and the taste of meat or poultry aren’t lost in the ashes.

As with anything in the kitchen or grill, it takes time to perfect a new method. Be mindful of your heat source, types and quality of meat you’re using, and the time you have to cook it.