McCormick Grill Mates Mesquite Marinade

This time of the year we start planning to grill out at least once a week, weather permitting. I'm totally a charcoal girl, and the taste of propane makes my stomach turn. I normally make my own marinade, too, but a friend suggested we try one of the McCormick Grill Mates, so that's exactly what we did for dinner tonight.

We decided to try the Mesquite Marinade on our steaks tonight, and I was pretty pleased with the outcome. The marinade packet cost $1.60 at our local Ingles, and it's enough to marinade 2lbs of meat.

Photo courtesy of McCormick's Press Room

McCormick's description:

FLAVOR You Can See! A smoky, slightly sweet blend of garlic, onions & pepper that captures the smoky flavor of real grilled Mesquite

I can't exactly say I agree with the "slightly sweet" that much because what really caught my attention was the pepper. Seriously, if you don't like a good bit of spice on your steak you won't like this marinade, but it was perfect for us. We both enjoy an extra kick. Hubby ate half of his steak while he was standing at the grill waiting for the rest of our food to cook, and he went on and on about how great he thought the marinade was!

My only complaint, other than the pepper thing, is that the marinade was very salty. I don't cook with a lot of salt, and I don't tend to season with much either. That comes from growing up in a family where salt was kept off the table during most meals, so we became accustomed to not using any. The salt content was definitely more than I would have used, but it still made a good steak.

It's not a marinade I'll be using on a regular basis, but since Hubby loved it we will definitely use it in the future. I'm also interested in trying the Grill Mates Steak Rub, so we may just try that next time we grill steaks.