How to Make Your Own Lunch Meat {Deli Meat, Like Salami}

"She riseth also while it is yet night, and giveth meat to her household,

and a portion to her maidens."

~ Proverbs 31:15

Because we butchered our Hereford last winter, we are blessed with a freezer full of home-grown, grass fed beef. One of our favorite recipes to make with our ground beef is this lunch meat! I love to have this on hand for family road trips, field trips and last minute lunches.

This is so easy to make! Simply add to your mixer, the following ingredients:

• 4 pounds of ground beef (I am sure you can substitute other meats. We have also tried ground goat meat and that worked well too.)

And...

• 2 cups water
• ¼ tsp. onion powder
• ½ tsp. garlic powder

• ¼ tsp. mustard seed
• 5 tbsp curing salt (see below for more information on the salt for this project)

• 4 tsp. sugar
• 3 tsp. Liquid Smoke

Mix for 5 minutes on speed one.

Almost done!

Next, shape into 4 rolls/logs on individual foil sheets. You can also insert a piece of parchment paper between the foil and the meat if you would like (this is healthier to avoid the aluminum but I didn't have any on hand at the time).

Make sure that the shiny side of the foil is "touching" the meat if you are not using the parchment paper.

Seal up the meat in the foil and punch holes on the bottom side of each log with a fork – about 5 fork punches. Place lunch meat logs on a cooling rack and place it on top of a cookie sheet (with the fork holes facing down). Refrigerate for 24 hours.  

Once the proper time has elapsed, bake on the aforementioned rack with the cookie sheet underneath for 1 ½ hours at 325 degrees Fahrenheit.  The reason for this is to allow the fat to drip out from the meat and into the tray while baking. Let cool and enjoy! These also freeze very well.

Enjoy on sandwiches or with a cracker and cheese!

I realize some people have a concern for using sodium nitrate (curing salt) but with the amount of deli meat we consume (about 8 pounds a year for our family), this isn't something I worry about. However, you may want to visit this post for more information. I have also seen some recipes using Himalayan pink salt. As I am not trained in the science behind the salts, I am sharing the tried and true recipe that has been passed down to me in my family. If you have more information on the safety of switching to a different preserving agent on a recipe like this, I would love for you to comment!

***Update*** After I posted this article, I decided to email Carole Cancler (who has a BS in Food Science and Nutrition), author of the Home Preserving Bible (a favorite resource of mine), for her insight on this topic. She was so very helpful (thank you Carole!)! Please read her response below regarding the usage of different salts in a recipe like ours.

"Even though this recipe uses curing salt, this recipe isn’t a preserving method, rather a flavoring method. Therefore, you can substitute any salt you like (or no salt or a salt substitute product). However, non-curing salt, i.e. salt without nitrates/nitrites will produce a very different product. It will be like meatloaf or sausage (or rather it will *be* meatloaf or sausage), with a gray/brown color and “meat” flavor. If what you truly desire is the sweet flavor and pink color of “cured” meat, you may be disappointed if you substitute the curing salt with another non-curing salt.

When we talk about curing meats today, there are two basic processes. There is an explanation at the beginning of Chapter 5, which I’ll summarize here.

The modern method is a flavoring, rather than a preserving method. Modern cured meat products create a product that still requires refrigeration and is relatively perishable…perhaps lasting only a few days in the refrigerator after the package is opened. But it does have the pink color and flavor changes associated with traditionally cured meats.

Traditional curing produces a dried meat product that uses “cure” (nitrates/nitrites) to control spoilage during the preserving process. Traditionally cured meats go through a much longer (several weeks) and very carefully controlled (temperature and humidity) process that removes the moisture from the meat and produces a shelf stable meat product—some examples include Virginia ham, Italian Prosciutto di Parma and dry-cured sausages, and Chinese “lap cheong”. Some of these products use nitrites and some do not. In the ones that do not use nitrites, similar color and flavor changes occur due to the long, slow, controlled aging process. Hope this helps!"

~ Carole Cancler, Author of The Home Preserving Bible

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