Anyone have homemade jerky recipes.

I finally bit the bullet and bought a dehydrator.   I love beef jerky, but don't eat it a lot, since it is so high in sodium.  I would love to hear of any recipes that you would want to share, since I will now start making my own jerky! 

Thanks, 

~Nik

I want samples please!

You may want to hold that request until we know how good it is, Kathy!    

I make a large batch of jerky once a week. I eat it occasionally, but my husband has it as a snack pretty much every night! I've got a foolproof recipe now :)

Julie's Spicy Jerky

• Start with a London broil, they're usually around 2lb. I wait for them to go on sale at Safeway for $2.99/lb and pick up a couple.
• Trim the fat from the edges. Slice the meat into 1/4" strips (about as wide as your knife blade), going against the grain at an angle.

• Stick the sliced meat into a gallon-size plastic zipper bag. Set the plastic bag in a mixing bowl (in case of leaks).
• Add your seasonings to the bag. I use:
  • 1/2 bottle Montreal steak seasoning mix
  • 1/2 large bottle Louisiana hot sauce
  • 1 small bottle Yucatan sunshine habanero sauce
• Zip the bag, pushing as much air out as you can. Shake it up so that the meat gets totally coated in spicy goodness.
• Leave it in the fridge to marinate at least overnight.
• The next day, spread the jerky pieces in the dehydrator, making sure the meat is flat and the pieces don't touch.
• Run the dehydrator at the highest temperature for 8 - 10 hours, depending on how crispy you like it.

You can play with the sauce all you like, but I've found that a seasoning mix plus two sauces works really well, plus you can add some Worcestershire sauce if you want to tone it down a bit. A few other combinations I like:

• Sriracha, ginger-chili paste, and soy sauce
• Jalapeno sauce (green Tabasco or the yellow bottle with the duck on the label, can't remember the name) + red Mexican hot sauce like Tapatillo or Cholula
• Cayenne hot sauce and Jamaican hot sauce (something with citrus in it, I like Peri-Peri)
• I haven't had a ton of luck with teriyaki yet, but best I've found is worcestershire, soy sauce, bottled Teriyaki sauce, and maybe a little bit of lemon; anything else comes out too sweet. Skip the seasoning mix and go for just salt, black pepper, and garlic.

Awesome, Julie!   Thank you very much.  I will let you know how it comes out.  

~Nik

I'd love to hear how yours turns out! I'll warn you, it's pretty darn spicy, so don't be afraid to scale back on the seasoning ;)

I will have to scale it back, but I know my boyfriend will love it.  He loves spicy things and this sounds right up his alley!   I will definitely let you know how it goes.   Have you ran the numbers on your recipe to see what the macros are at all?   

2oz of meat (uncooked weight) with sauce and seasoning is 120 calories, 15g protein, 0 carbs. :)

This is the recipe my husband and I use, and the jersey is great.  I add garlic to taste to the marinade, and I also add Sriracha powder to make it spicier.  The recipe has less than one carb per ounce and has about 50 calories an ounce.  

https://recipes.sparkpeople.com/recipe-detail.asp?recipe=197 7251

After I finish dehydrating it, I weigh out 1 ounce portions and seal them in baggies, so we can go to a drawer and grab one for a snack, always knowing how much we are getting.