Beef Jerky

Sustainably raised beef can be tasty, economical, and environmental as long as you do not go overboard. Grass fed, grass finished beef is generally the best option and eye of round is often the least expensive cut of beef you can buy. It is one of the leanest cuts and is excellent for making beef jerky.  

Bring a suitable container to your butcher so you don't need to have your beef wrapped in disposable trash. You can play with seasonings in the recipe below to suit your taste. I usually toss them in without measuring that accurately.

Equipment

3-4 large jelly roll pans

3-4 wire racks that fit the jelly roll pans

1-2 large containers to hold marinated meat in refrigerator

Ingredients

1 eye of round roast (about 3 lbs) trimmed of fat

1 cup of soy sauce

1 cup brown sugar (optional unless you like sweet beef jerky, I usually don't use sugar)

tablespoons or teaspoons of whatever seasonings you prefer such as but not limited to:

• garam marsala

• curry

• cumin

• garlic powder

• onion powder

• paprika

• tumeric

• red pepper or hot sauce 

• black pepper

• ketchup

• Worcestershire sauce

• liquid smoke (just use a little)

1 teaspoon unseasoned meat tenderizer if you cut your meat with the grain, not needed if you cut across the grain

Instructions

Mix marinade mixture in a bowl or containers and whisk to get everything dissolved and spices evenly suspended.

Slice meat into roughly 1/8" thick slices.  I usually halve my roast horizontally before slicing so I can carve off long strips of meat. You can slightly freeze the meat to make cutting easier but I usually can cut it without freezing. Just make sure your knife is sharp. Cut with the grain for tougher jerky, across the grain for more tender jerky.

Place meat and marinade in 1 or 2 large containers and mix to get marinade on all surfaces of the meat.

Marinate meat overnight in the refrigerator.

Preheat oven to 170 or 175°F.

Arrange strips of meat in a single layer on wire racks within jelly roll sheet pans. My sheet pans are made of aluminum and I do not line them with aluminum foil.

Cook remaining marinade to turn it into a sauce.

Bake in oven for 30-45 minutes.

Pour off accumulated drippings and add this to the left over marinade to further enhance your sauce. You can store the cooked sauce for a few days in the refrigerator to make gravies or as a base for other sauces if the cooked marinade by itself does not suit your tastes.

Bake another 2.5 hours until beef is fairly dry. If you have a convection oven circulating air, you don't need to rotate pans. If you do not have a convection oven, rotate the pans about half way through.

Notes

Beef jerky can be stored for a few days at room temperature, for a few weeks in the refrigerator, or for a year or so in a freezer. 

Copyright 2025 Tim Oey. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.