Beef Jerky Recipe

Jerky is one of the oldest forms of preserved meat. Drying meat deprives the bacteria that cause food spoilage of the moisture they need to survive. Thus the meat does not spoil. The earliest jerky was made by smoking strips of meat over a fire or simply drying it in the sun. Today you can simply buy a food dehydrator, and you can even make jerky in your oven.

Some ovens actually have a dehydrate setting. But if yours doesn't, just use the lowest temperature your oven will go to, which is probably somewhere between 160°F and 200°F. And if your oven has a convection setting, that's great. Set the oven to a low temperature with the convection fan going, and the circulating air will help dry out the jerky. In fact, that's all the dehydrate setting does is cook on a very low-temperature while the convection fan moves the air around inside the oven.

You'll need some sort of wire rack so that the air will be able to circulate under the meat. I use a regular roasting rack set inside a sheet pan and it works perfectly.

You can make jerky out pretty much any kind of meat, although beef is the most common. You can also get buffalo meat for making jerky, and even chicken or turkey breast will make a nice jerky. Venison will work great, too. As a rule, lean meats are best for making jerky.

There are any number of ways to season the meat for jerky, and I like to use a wet marinade that blends sweet, salty and spicy flavors. But you can also just mix up your favorite dry rub, season the strips of meat and dehydrate. You're pretty much only limited by your imagination. Following is my recipe for beef jerky. I like to use top round steak, cut into strips about a quarter of an inch thick.

See Also

How to Roast Meats

How to Braise Meat

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