FoodHome & Garden

Dexam Instant Marinator Review

Reviewed by Louise Totton

Being a family who eats a lot of highly flavoured foods (curries, Chinese food, BBQ’d meats and casseroles), we were really excited to be asked to try out the Dexam Instant Marinator, as we do quite often find that we decide last minute what we’d like to eat, and then can’t marinate it for as long as I would like, resulting in a meal that isn’t quite as flavourful as it could be.

This product claims to be able to solve this issue by creating an environment where meat or veg can be marinated to a level that would traditionally take 8 hours, in just 20 minutes, making it sound absolutely ideal for our family.

When the product arrived, I was surprised by how compact the box was; I had somehow expected something larger, and was concerned that it might not be large enough to feed the whole family. Because of this, we decided to try it out on a meal for just my husband and I on the first usage.

We washed it in warm soapy water, as instructed, for the first usage and put our marinade together in one of our own bowls, and then started to read the instructions to get the marinade going. We decanted the pork in the marinade into the Marinator dish, making sure that the quantity of meat was between the minimum and maximum permitted levels. I was quite surprised just how little of the bowl the mixture took up, and based on that, I think we could absolutely have marinated meat for 4 adults in it.

At this point in the proceedings, my husband took over the proceedings (with part names like plunger, valve, valve seal and locking ring, it was, as far as he was concerned, now an engineering task rather than a cooking task).

The instructions seemed pretty clear, there is a diagram which shows how the product should be assembled, with all of the component parts labelled. The device was assembled simply and quickly – the instant marinate effect seems to be achieved by creating a vacuum within the device, which we managed to achieve on our second attempt.

We left the meat for the suggested 20 minutes (just the right amount of time to get the onions chopped and frying and other components of the meal prepared), before releasing the vacuum. Releasing the vacuum was simple, just as the instructions suggested. I then took over the cooking of the meal whilst my husband loaded the marinator onto the top shelf of the dishwasher.

I guess the main test of a product like this is whether it does the job it is designed to do. Well, this product certainly does that. The curry was flavourful and tasty, just as it would have been had it been marinated overnight. Since then, we have also done a Chinese style chicken marinade as well as a chicken in red wine, chicken peri peri and a beef in ale casserole. All have been absolutely delicious, with a depth of flavour that could not normally be achieved in such a short time.

The product is made from a high quality plastic, and we have so far not managed to stain it, even with the use of turmeric and red wine. It hasn’t scratched and had washed really well in the dish washer.

We’re absolutely delighted with the product and it will certainly be used very regularly.

Rating: 5/5

RRP: £27

Available to buy from Amazon here.

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