Zesty Ground Beef Jerky
An easy recipe for tender ground beef jerky made at home with little to no sugar. The result is a slightly chewy and tasty treat that’s not tough or full of sugar, like store-bought jerky can be.
Jerky is one of those special foods that can potentially last indefinitely if you prepare it correctly. I had seen a few people online talking about making beef jerky at home using ground beef and it intrigued me.
Recently, I wound up with some very lean ground beef, which I’m not a fan of—so I decided to put my research to good use. I found you can make jerky at home, but most recipes call for use of dehydrators and/or smokers, special curing agents or seasoning blends you have to buy if you don’t have them on hand, and jerky guns or piping devices. With this recipe though, it is so simple and there’s none of that special equipment needed.
All you need to make this ground beef jerky are:
• An oven that can heat on low temps (160-180F)
• Something to roll with (rolling pin or similar cylindrical object)
• Plastic sandwich bags or plastic wrap
• A metal wire rack that is oven safe and has small grate holes on it
INGREDIENTS
• 1 lb very lean ground beef (minimum recommended is 90%)
• 2 teaspoons Kosher Salt
• 1/2 teaspoon Coarse ground black pepper (optional, to sprinkle on top)
Dry Spice Blend:
• 1/4 teaspoon Garlic powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Smoked paprika
• 1/4 teaspoon Crushed red pepper flakes (optional)
Alternatively, for spice blend…
If you already have a favorite blend of spices combined in a seasoning, you can use 2-3 teaspoons of your favorite sugar-free seasoned salt or bbq/steak rub
Wet ingredients:
• 2 tablespoons cold water
• 1 teaspoon, Liquid Smoke
• 1/8 teaspoon Unsulphered Blackstrap Molasses
• 1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
(omit the last two if going for 0 sugar, and use about 1 1/2 oz water)
DIRECTIONS
Whisk the dry ingredients together with a fork in a small bowl and add the wet ingredients, and stir together to make a loose slurry.
Place the meat in a large mixing bowl with the seasoned slurry and combine together with your hands very well. Add in the salt once it’s no longer very loose and forms a meat dough ball. Make sure the meat and liquids are very cold and try not to work the meat too much with your hands to avoid it getting very tough.
Cover the bowl with plastic wrap or a lid and chill in the fridge for at least 1 hour or until it firms up and absorbs the seasoning mixture.
Set your oven to the lowest possible temp you can achieve. I was able to get mine down to 158F. I have a dial temperature that starts the reading marks at 200F but I put the dial well below that and turn slowly until I hear the oven start, then place my instant thermometer’s probe just inside the door while closing it, to monitor as the oven gets up to temp. I would recommend you could go as high as 175-180F, but then be sure to watch the meat so as not to dry it too quickly (the inside of the meat registered at 159F for me when I took mine out).
Using your hands or a metal scoop, form balls out of the meat mixture, roughly 1 1/4 inches (a little smaller than a golf ball).
Take your sandwich bag or plastic sheet and place a ball of meat onto one side, and fold the other half of the bag or plastic wrap sheet over it. Roll the ball through the plastic using a rolling pin or other smooth cylindrical object until you have a round disk about 1/8″ in thickness.
If using a sandwich bag with the zip-closure top, I cut or tear the plastic bag open on either side so it opens as shown below.
Then when ready to roll, the zipper line is just a little lower than the disk you want to achieve, but still is a decent guide to make it easy to roll it fairly evenly.
Each disk should lift easily from the plastic if you open the top layer and then place the plastic meat-side-down onto the wire metal rack, and slowly peel off the plastic. You can fit the disks very close to one another and almost touching each other, they will shrink up in the drying process.
Before drying, sprinkle a generous amount of coarse ground black pepper on them, if you like, and gently pat it down.
Place the wire metal rack directly on your oven’s middle rack (do not leave the rack inside of a pan or cookie sheet as these photos show, or you will steam the meat, not dry it!) and let sit at 160F max temp for about two hours. See notes above about temps. I pulled mine out about 95 minutes in, on my second batch. If you are worried about drips, place a sheet of foil on the oven’s floor, making sure not to cover your heat coils or slits in the floor that allow the gas fire heat in.
The end result is a tender, chewy snack that you may not be able to make last very long in your house! Enjoy 🙂
My 1 lb of meat made 6 ounces of jerky, so about 6 one-ounce servings.
They dry up quickly, so if you like your jerky to have more of a tough bite, feel free to leave them out until they look as dry as you’d like. Then place in an airtight container or seal in a plastic bag.
I strongly recommend refrigerating leftovers.
I sent samples of my ground beef jerky to friends who love it, and now I make it in strips and sell it! If you are interested in low carb beef jerky delivered to your door, please visit this page: Mailbox meat: Buy low carb beef jerky online
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this is delicious jerky and super easy to make. My 12 yr old even loves it! I omitted the molasses since i didn’t have any and it was just as fantastic (i have actually had the original recipe made by BJ herself). My oven only goes as low as 170, and it took about 2 hrs for 3 rack’s with (i doubled the recipe). Bonus tip: i used my tortilla press to get these to a consistent thickness in case others have one to use.
That’s so awesome! I’m glad these worked out well for you. A tortilla press sounds like a really good idea. Thanks for the tip!