If you’ve ever wondered “what’s the best meat injector for impregnating meat with moisture and flavour” then you’re definitely a food-geek and you belong here.
Because you know when it comes to cooking meat, the flavor is one of the most important ingredients that you need to add.
Often brining chicken or marinating beef is a great way of infusing them and elevating your meal from a good one to a great one. However…
Injecting your meat with flavoring takes your meat to the next level by keeping your meat juicy, tender, and giving you that sumptuous meat flavor throughout the whole piece.
Because no one wants to eat dried out, tough, flavourless meat!
So, infusing your meat before cooking is very important as the fluid embeds itself deeper into the flesh as it cooks.
So obviously you’ve heard of a meat injector otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this. These easy-to-use syringes are durable, with enough capacity to fill your entire meat dish.
However, there are a few cheaper meat injectors that will actually damage the quality of your meal and could potentially even lead to food poisoning.
But what features and accessories should your meat injector come with as standard? And what is the best meat injector on the market?
And my conclusion is that these are the top 3 meat injector choices today…
The Best Meat Injectors: Top 3 Choices
OUR TOP PICK
Our first meat injector is one that is composed of highly durable stainless steel, with a barrel end and a plunger disc crafted from solid metal.
This will allow you to exert as much force over your injection as humanly possible.
This ensures that every portion of your injector that comes into contact with your meat will be metallic, increasing the levels of hygiene.
Introducing the Premiala Awesome Meat Injector.
When it comes to any kitchen utensil, you’ll want something that promotes the utmost level of hygiene to protect you, your friends and your family from any potential health hazards.
Stainless steel is one of the safest and cleanest hygienic materials available on the food market.
And that’s why you’ll so often find it used to make a lot of kitchen utensils.
This injector comes with silicon rings that help protect this product against the usual wear and tear.
Plus, it comes with plenty of spare parts that you can easily use to replace damaged ones.
Overall this item comes with plenty of products that will help prolong its lifespan.
The Premiala could be the best meat injector on the market right now.
Pros
- With plenty of interchangeable needles, this product does its utmost to reduce the amount of cross-contamination.
- The interchangeable needles come in a wide variety of sizes, the largest of which can cope with very thick marinades, which will be very important for boosting the flavor palette of strong meats.
- With spare O-rings, brushes and plenty of spare needles, you can expect your syringe to last you for years, possibly even decades if maintained properly.
- This injector promotes high-level hygiene, with a stainless steel body that is dishwasher friendly and easy to clean, you can keep bacteria to an absolute minimum.
Cons
- The price – with a lot of state-of-the-art features, you can expect a higher price tag. This might not be an option for an amateur-level cook who is working on a budget.
EDITORS CHOICE
Our next meat injector is very eye-catching and will be guaranteed to get guests talking in your kitchen.
It is one that requires very little pressure to inject your flavoring into the meat, which will be a massive boon for senior users or people who have mobility issues.
Introducing the SpitJack Magnum Meat Injector Gun.
This meat injector has a gun-like operation, with a trigger that will allow pretty much every user to use this syringe easily.
This comes in a stainless steel finish, which makes this another very hygienic syringe.
You can pop it in the dishwasher on a quick rinse and it will be ready for you to use again in under half an hour.
The SpitJack comes with 4 needles, which is perfect if you want to inject your meat with multiple flavors or want to inject a single flavor into multiple types of meat.
This unit comes with a cleaning brush, which will allow you to remove dried marinade and other foodstuffs that might get stuck to the inside of the housing.
Pros
- The trigger – the spring action lever will allow even the most inexperienced chef to use this syringe with very little hassle.
- This is a great meat injector for chefs who are new to the marinading game. One simple squeeze and you’ll be able to get a nice fat shot into your chicken or pork loin.
- The stainless steel composition of this injector makes it a highly hygienic unit. It comes with a transparent plastic barrel, allowing you to more accurately monitor how much fluid is going into your food.
- You’ll get plenty of spare parts with this injector, which means that you can get multiple uses out of it during the same cooking session. The brush means that you’ll be able to remove a lot of stubborn stains.
Cons
- The price – once again this is another particularly pricey unit, which might be a deterrent to the more inexperienced chef.
BEST VALUE
Our next injector is at the lower end than some of the others on this list but comes with lots of handy accessories.
This injector is very sturdy and reliable, with a shiny and wipeable steel composition that will allow you to rinse or dish-wash it quickly.
This is great for those amateur chefs who are unsure about marinating and don’t want to spend the earth on an expensive injector.
This injector is perfect for shooting flavor deep into a chicken breast and other medium-thick meat.
With a durable metal syringe that won’t bend or break even after multiple uses.
This is a great product to use for a beginner to practice on before progressing to a more expensive unit.
Pros
- The stainless steel composition of the needles will be able to pierce the meat quickly and efficiently with very minimal puncturing effort. The tip is sharp enough to deal with most medium-cuts of meat.
- This injector has a plastic container to house a substantial quantity of marinating liquids. It is also transparent, allowing you to measure the exact amount of liquid that you’ll be putting into your meat.
- This is the perfect starting point for newbie chefs who want to quickly progress into the realms of the master chefs.
Cons
- This unit only comes with 2 needles, which might seem less than adequate for an intermediate or professional chef that wants replaceable extras they can fall back on.
RUNNER UP
Next up is another very affordable unit, with a completely transparent body that contains measurements on the side.
Allowing for more accurate measurements, which are often incredibly important during cooking.
It is very durable and designed for simple one-handed maneuvering – introducing the Plastic Marinade Turkey Injector Syringe.
The stainless steel needles that come with this product are very resilient and sharp, allowing you to easily pierce through most soft meats, not just turkey.
It holds a fairly generous 1-ounce portion of the marinade, so you won’t have to refill it.
The needles are about 3 inches long but are thicker than your average syringe needle, allowing you to inject marinade with chunkier components.
This injector is very easy and, most importantly if you have young family members, safe to store in your cupboard.
The needles themselves detach and can be stored within the housing of the case.
This unit is also safe to use in the dishwasher, made as it is from hygienic plastic.
Pros
- The capacity – made from basting large turkeys, this can hold up to 1 ounce of marinade, which significantly reduces the amount you’ll have to fill it.
- You can store it easily, as it comes with needles that simply detach and slip into the housing of the injector.
- It’s specially designed for use with one hand, which will certainly appeal to ambidextrous cooks who like to inject with one hand and stir a saucepan with the other.
- These needles are generally thicker, which will help transfer chunkier marinades into the very heart of your dry chicken, turkey and beef.
Cons
- Some users have complained that the plastic casing is not as durable or hygienic as the stainless steel meat injectors.
RUNNER UP
Our final flavor injector is perfect for novice cooks, designed to infuse your chicken and beef with delicious flavors such a brine and paprika.
The clear plastic barrel comes marked with measurements that will give you that greater degree of accuracy when administering your marinade.
Introducing the OXO Flavor Injector for Meat & Poultry.
Like our last model, this one comes with an ergonomically-designed handle that allows you to inject it with just one hand, which is ideal for those busy chefs who like to be doing 3 things at once in the kitchen.
The plastic housing is also very durable and easily cleaned, although you might want to avoid putting it in the dishwasher.
This kit comes with two solid needles, one for thin marinades and another for thicker ones.
This OXO injector will be ideal if you’re planning on infusing your chicken with numerous different flavor types.
This simple meat injection kit will be perfect for beginners who don’t want to splash out the extra dollars on a stainless steel unit.
Pros
- The plastic body is easy to clean and will prevent the buildup of hard, dry marinade. This is the perfect unit for pro chefs who want to avoid cross-contamination.
- The measurements on the side will give you that scientific level of accuracy when preparing your recipe.
- Reliable and easy-to-use – this is the ideal meat injector for a novice cook who has little to no idea about meat infusion.
- The two solid needles are adapted for both thin and thick marinade, giving you that advanced level of flexibility in the kitchen.
Cons
- This is not dishwasher friendly, which might not appeal to busy chefs who don’t have the time or the energy to hand wash all their utensils after every cooking session.
Best Meat Injector Buying Guide
You might not see the necessity for a meat injector, but they really can improve your dinner tenfold, infusing it with a flavor that might surprise and impress your guests.
However, you’ll want to think about how frequently you’ll be infusing your meat before selecting your ideal meat injector.
There are several features and benefits for injecting your meat with a delicious marinade, and we’re going to outline a few of them.
We’ll also cover the differences between marinating and injecting as well as the types of meat injectors you can buy.
Why Buy A Meat Injector?
A meat injector is designed to reintroduce moisture and flavor back into potentially dry and flavorless meat. This is particularly useful for meat that is slow roasting over time, as it can become dehydrated and lose a lot of its flavor.
Smoking meat is a very popular way of preparing meat, allowing it to cook over perhaps half a day in an industrial-sized grill with flavored chips underneath such as apple or maple.
Introducing moisture into the heart of your chicken or turkey as it smokes over a few hours will help prevent loss of flavor and help to keep its shape.
Marinating Vs. Injecting?
The difference between marinating and injecting is very simple. Marinating is when you soak the meat in a seasoned liquid for several hours to infuse the outer skin of it with flavor.
Some people often soak a chicken in brine overnight to give it that extra salty quality.
Marinating is often done with smaller chunks of meat such as chicken breasts or pork chops, as they can better fit in a vessel full of water.
However, when it comes to larger cuts of meat, marinating might not do the job well, as it will only soak into the topmost layer of the chicken.
Injecting meat is the ideal way of preparing the inside of your chicken as well as the outside, ensuring that it is moist throughout.
Injecting it straight into the meat will also mean that you can put it on your grill or meat smoker immediately.
Out of the two methods, injecting is the fastest and most effective method of infusing the meat with the optimum amount of flavor.
Different Kinds of Meat Injector
Most of the meat injectors that we’ve listed above are made from either stainless steel or plastic, both of which are very lightweight, durable and easy to clean.
The needles of your syringe will be perforated with holes along its body, so that your marinade can disperse evenly throughout the center of your meat.
Needles are also thin and thick in construction, allowing you to inject either thin fluids or fluids that contain larger chunks and shreds of leaf.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Do You Use a Meat Injector?
Before injecting your marinade, try and remove all the unnecessary chunks and pieces of leaf that will be floating in it.
This will of course depend on the thickness of your needle.
If you are using a thin needle, the chances are that the leaves and chunks will get stuck in the housing.
Once the syringe is full, you can inject the meat in one of two ways.
You can inject small amounts of marinade at various points in your meat, which will ensure a much more even distribution of fluid.
However, if there is a single opening in your meat, then simply inject the fluid evenly across these points.
If you have a syringe that has multiple exit points already, then you won’t have to inject it more than once, just make sure your needle is driven deep enough to cover all holes.