Mojo Marinade (Mojo Criollo) is a delicious infused with garlic, herbs, and citrus that turns your favorite protein into an amazing meal. Enjoy this on pork, shrimp, chicken, seafood, and skirt steak. Pull this tangy sour marinade together in just a few minutes and then let it work its magic.
With a mortar and pestle smash the garlic and salt together until they make a paste. If you do not have a mortar and pestle then you can put it in a plastic bag and use a rolling pin or heavy-bottomed pan to smash.
Combine in a small bowl the garlic paste, pepper, cumin, orange juice, lime juice, grapefruit juice, oregano, olive oil, and onion. Whisk together.
Use the marinade immediately with pork, chicken, beef skirt steak, or shrimp. Or refrigerate for up to three weeks in an airtight container. This can be frozen for up to three months as well.
Notes
You can scale the recipe for what you need it for. It can be doubled or tripled or even more depending on how much protein needs to be marinated.Feel free to adjust the seasonings to your palate for this mojo marinade to flavor it the way you want. Turn up the garlic, and cumin, or even add a little spice.Make some extra to reserve for later in the cooking process to brush on your protein at the end of grilling, roasting, smoking, or slow cooking. The used marinade can be boiled for 10 minutes and reused for this as well.Marinating times will be dependent on the amount and size of the protein.
Shrimp and seafood - you will only need 30-minutes to marinade seafood. After 30-minutes the citrus will break down or begin to cook the shrimp or fish.
Chickenor other poultry - at minimum 2 hours to overnight.
Pork - for smaller cuts like pork chops or tenderloins 2-8 hours. Large cuts like pork loin or butt roast need to marinate for 8 hours to overnight.
Beef - skirt steaks and more tender cuts of beef should marinate for 2-4 hours. Any large tough cuts of meat like chuck roast should be overnight.