Baking Soda can be used to tenderize meat.

Baking soda is used to keep meat tender in some recipes.If you leave the solution on the meat longer than 15 to 20 minutes, what happens?

Briefly soaking meat in a solution of baking soda and water raises the pH on the meat's surface, making it more difficult for the proteins to bond excessively, which keeps it tender and moist when it is cooked.If your dinner prep is interrupted and that time is doubled or even tripled, what's the point of having a 15- to 20-minute treatment?

We treated ground beef, sliced chicken breast, and sliced pork with baking soda for different lengths of time to see if a soak longer than 15 to 20 minutes would do more harm than good.We were surprised to find that samples that were treated for 45 minutes were the same as those that had only 15 minutes.

The acid/base reaction does not build much over time.When we weighed the samples of ground beef that had been treated before and after cooking, we found that the sample that was treated for 45 minutes retained a mere 3 percent more moisture.

If you want to reap the benefits of a baking soda treatment, fifteen minutes is long enough, but don't worry if your dinner prep gets interrupted and you have to extend that time a bit.

A 15-minute stint in a combination of water and baking soda keeps meat tender and moist when it's cooked.