Homemade Meat Jerky: Simple Recipe with Photos

14 May 20:46

3 min. read

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We will need:Step 1: Cutting the meat Step 2: Marinating the meat Step 3: Drying in the oven

This content has been automatically translated from Ukrainian.

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Meat Jerky is a snack made from chicken fillet, beef, pork tenderloin (or any other meat), which is prepared by prolonged drying of the meat at relatively low temperatures. In addition to the meat itself, it contains only salt and a mixture of spices. Preparing them at home is quite easy; the main thing is to stock up on patience and your favorite spices. We will explain how to make beef and chicken jerky at home further on.

We will need:

1 kg of beef (we chose the neck, as it has minimal marbling)
2 medium-sized chicken fillets
finest salt
spice mix (smoked paprika, dried chili pepper, dried garlic, curry, turmeric, khmeli-suneli, ground coriander).

The amount of meat and spices can vary depending on your preferences and tastes. This quantity of products was enough for a company of four adults as snacks with beer.

Step 1: Cutting the meat

Rinse the meat with water, removing all the marbling as much as possible. Cut across the grain into the thinnest slices (a few millimeters thick). If possible, using a slicer is the best option. In this case, the meat should be kept in the freezer for a few hours to ensure the pieces are as uniform in thickness as possible. This will affect the drying time of the jerky in the oven. The thicker the pieces, the longer the drying time will be.

Step 2: Marinating the meat

In a bowl, combine the salt and chosen spices. We chose 2 spice options: mild for chicken (salt + smoked paprika, dried garlic, curry, turmeric, khmeli-suneli, ground coriander) and spicy for beef (everything as for chicken + dried chili pepper). Mix thoroughly and leave in the refrigerator overnight.

Step 3: Drying in the oven

Place on a rack, turn on the upper and lower heating elements (convection mode), set the temperature to 60-70 degrees. Place a baking sheet lined with foil at the bottom of the oven. It is necessary for the fat to drain from the meat.

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Since the chicken pieces turned out thicker, it took 5 hours to dry them.

The beef, on the other hand, since it was cut much thinner, "dried" in just 3 hours, but it required loading the rack twice, meaning cooking in batches (there were more pieces resulting from the cutting than chicken).

Cool and enjoy. The finished jerky can be stored in the refrigerator for over a week, as it is a dehydrated and salt-preserved product that spoils very slowly, or more accurately – has a long shelf life.

The finished jerky loses at least 70% of the weight from the initial mass of the meat. From 1 kg of beef, about 300 grams of jerky were obtained, and from 800 g of chicken - about 250 grams of jerky. But this quantity was enough for a company of four people. They taste great with dark beer (but don't take this as alcohol promotion ;))