There are so many uses for a fine marinade that it seems almost inappropriate to task the ingredient with more. After all, you’ve already let your favorite dish soak in the marinade overnight. All that time, your marinade has been working hard to soak every morsel of the food with flavor. However, marinade can be used for much more, and this one ingredient can be served as a key factor in all your food preparation for a meal. Like debt consolidation for the culinary world, it combines a number of gruesome tasks into one easy part of your food preparation.

One of the more creative ways to extend the marinade after use is as a food topping. It can be used to top off rice or breads, and a sly cook may even find that their marinade is easily modified into a salad dressing. The only thing to be wary of here is the risks from raw meat. If you have marinated raw meat, make sure you heat the marinade to boiling for at least three minutes in order to get rid of any bacteria and avoid any E. coli contamination.

You can also use marinade to flavor other ingredients. Try throwing in vegetables such as Portabello mushrooms along with your main dish. You are almost sure to find yourself enamored with the results.

One of the best tricks also is to use a marinade to caramelize ingredients like onions. Simply tossing the marinade into the mix and cooking it until you have nothing but beautifully sugar-glazed and flavored onions will make you feel like an expert chef. Of course, this only works with certain marinades, such as those with a balsamic or water base, so be aware of your ingredients before you try this method.