Dead Simple Homemade Turkey Jerky

stephenrhinton

Ok so one of the things I have struggled with is keeping my proteins up whilst keeping my calories and carbs down. One of the biggest helps with this has been eating jerky as a snack. But recently after running out of jerky and sitting down to reorder I started really thinking how much per pound this stuff actually costs and was a tad put off. Then I looked at the cost of dehydrators, and could get one of those for the cost of about 2lbs of jerky!

So my new today arrived today! And two hours later I had my first batch of home made turkey jerky! Yeah!

Now I am not a cook. I'm a single guy ...cooking and cleaning to serve one person is usually just too much hassle for me. My normal rule is if I can't nuke it in the microwave, or throw it on the grill, I don't make it. So I wanted to come up with the simplest possible way to make my own jerky. This is what I tried ...

4 slices of Great Value Brand Fat Free Turkey Breast Luncheon meat - Cut each slice into 6 roughly similar sized pieces. Giving me 24 pieces of jerky, which I am calling 2 servings.

1/4 cup of soy sauce - This is acting as your salt/preservative agent. You could just do salt water, but again I am looking for DEAD SIMPLE.

3 Tablespoons of hot sauce - This is for taste, if you don't like spicy jerky you might use ginger, or garlic or onion powder, etc. I used tapatio picante salsa sauce, but mostly because that is what I already had in the fridge. I would probably try to make sure you get a variety that doesn't have any sugar.

2 Packets of Splenda Sweetner - One of my peeves about jerky is why dried meat has any carbs at all! Most of the recipes you find call for sugar, brown sugar or honey. Again this is mostly for taste altho it does also have some preservative effect.

I mixed that all together in a ziplock bag and stuck in my fridge for 24 hours. Which is why I was able make my first batch within minutes of receiving my new dehydrator.

From my little experiment I got definitely edible, but slightly salty turkey jerky. My rough guess using MFP recipe generator is that I got about 55 calories for 11g of protein and 4g of carbs.

Pros:
I really like that it dehydrated so quickly. Most recipes call for 8-16 hours of drying. But the luncheon meat slices are so thin they dry really quickly. I might even pull them out in less than two hours next time.

I really like that using the luncheon meat the thickness is uniform, so my drying is uniform.

I really like that my turkey is already fat free. One of the things you read about on various jerky websites is trying to get very lean cuts of meat to dehydrate. Fat doesn't dehydrate well and the fat content of your meat is largely what determines the shelf-life of your home-made jerky.

I really like that starting with luncheon meat it is already cooked. I know the dehydrating process is supposed to make it safe to eat. But for just starting out I was comforted to know I wasn't going to accidentally give myself salmonella.

Cons:

I discovered that the luncheon meat I used already has carbs! GRRR! I'm trying for a carbless snack here! I make look for a different brand, or get the low fat instead of fat free. Often products that are fat free have carbs added. But the other factor I will be looking at is how thickly sliced it is. Very much thinner than I have already isn't going to work well.

Too Salty. I definitely tasted the soy sauce more than the hot sauce or splenda. I think I'll water down my marinade a bit next time.

Thoughts for the next batch;

Double up - I only used 2 of four trays on my dehydrator. I'll make more at a go next time

Dilute the Marinade - I will add some water to my marinade, and maybe increase the portions of splenda and hot sauce.

Different brand luncheon meat - I'll be shopping to see if there is another luncheon meat with no or less carbs but similar thickness, still low or no fat.

Anyone else making their own jerky? I'm especially interested in other 'DEAD SIMPLE' tricks ...

nill4me

I make my own jerky all the time! We love it. Commercially made jerky has a lot of sugar and carbs in it....and other stuff like MSG. ick.

I don't worry about fat, as I follow a low carb, high fat diet, but these recipes are both low carb and low fat.

Buffalo chicken jerky: Buy chicken tenderloins or take boneless skinless breasts and cut them into strips with a scissors into a ziptop bag. dump in some franks buffalo sauce to coat and let marinate overnight, dehydrate the next day. Dead Simple, and really good.

Peppered Beef Jerky: Buy some super thinly sliced beef. Cut into strips. My publix usually has pre sliced fajita meat that I'ved used for this also. Into a zip top bag dump in some soy or liquid aminos (thats what I use), some worcestershire sauce, a splash of good red wine if you have some laying around. add some course ground black pepper, and red pepper flakes if you like it spicy, and other spices you might like such as garlic powder. Add your meat and let marinate overnight in the fridge. Dehydrate the next day.

I've also marinated beef overnight with a jar of pace picante sauce for a different twist.

Have fun with your jerky making!!

stephenrhinton

yeah ...i'm loving the simplicity and superfast dehydrating time that using luncheon meat is giving me ....but the downside is the luncheon meats already have some carbs from whatever processing they do.

I'm not concerned about fat for fat sake ....but stuff I've read about making jerky is that fat doesn't dehydrate and thus limits the shelf life of your jerky.

My next iteration is going to be using deli meat instead of prepackaged luncheon meats. It costs more ...but I may can get a zero carb recipe and it'll still be cheaper than commercial jerky ...