Homemade Beef Jerky

This week-end I finally made beef jerky and it was so easy. 

Time consuming…but easy.

All I did was: 

1. Buy a roast. I used a sirloin tip because it was on sale. It was about three pounds. I think a round roast would probably work better but this was fine. I put it in the freezer for a few hours and then cut off as much fat as I could. I then sliced it into very thin slices about 1/4 inch thick.

2. Next I mixed a marinade together in a ziploc bag. I used 1/3 cup of worcestershire sauce, 1/2 cup tamari, 2 tsp sriracha hot sauce, 1 tsp fresh ground pepper, 1 tsp smoked salt (sea salt could be used instead), 1 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp onion powder, and 1 tsp smoked paprika. I just put all the ingredients in a ziploc bag and squished them up a bit. Then I tossed the meat in the bag, sealed it and massaged the marinade into the meat trying to coat every piece. 

3. I put the meat in the fridge and let it sit, turning it occasionally for about 24 hours.

4. The oven was preheated to 170 degrees F.* I pulled out a couple of cookie trays and placed cooling racks on top of them and placed the meat on the racks. I put two trays in the oven and waited. 

5. The thinnest pieces were ready after about four hours. I continued to add extra pieces of meat as I took pieces out. (I couldn't fit all the meat on my racks at once). The entire process took about twelve hours. Around 2am I started getting a little jealous of everybody who has two ovens…

The jerky turned out really good. Although, I will admit a couple of pieces were a bit too dry because I dozed off for a bit around 4am and didn't get them out of the oven at the right time. But they were still pretty good. The kids loved it. The biggest problem I had was it disappeared way too quickly. 

But isn't that always the way with good food. You spend hours preparing it and it disappears in minutes. I always like to think the faster it disappears the better it is. 

As an added bonus, I think I have earned a new level in superhero status with my boys…homemade jerky. Try it…your kids (and your husband) will think you are awesome.

*I am not an expert in food safety and am not sure if this is the current recommended temperature…it's just the lowest setting on my oven.