Corned beef is a delicious delicacy that is often served around St. Patrick’s Day. While you can easily buy pre-made corned beef at the grocery store there’s nothing quite like the flavor of homemade corned beef made from scratch. If you’ve never made corned beef at home before, don’t be intimidated. With just a few simple ingredients and steps, you can make tasty homemade corned beef right in your own kitchen.
In this step-by-step guide, I’ll walk you through everything you need to know to make juicy flavorful corned beef from scratch. Let’s get started!
What is Corned Beef?
Before we dive into the process, let’s go over the basics. Corned beef is made by curing beef brisket in a brine solution. The brine is made up of water, salt, spices, and curing salts. This cures the meat while infusing it with flavor.
Traditionally, corned beef got its name from the large grained rock salts that were used in the curing process, which were about the size of corn kernels. While the salts used today are much finer, the name stuck.
The cure not only gives corned beef its signature flavor but it also tenderizes the meat while retaining moisture. This results in a juicy, delicious final product!
Choosing the Right Brisket
For the best homemade corned beef, you’ll want to start with a fresh beef brisket. When selecting your brisket, look for the following:
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Flat cut brisket – You’ll want to use the flat cut rather than the point cut. The flat cut is leaner and will slice nicely.
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Well marbled – Look for good marbling throughout the brisket. This intramuscular fat will keep the corned beef moist and tender.
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4-5 pounds – Aim for a brisket that’s 4-5 pounds. This size will give you plenty of meat without being unwieldy.
Making the Brine
The brine is what gives corned beef its signature flavor. While you can buy pre-made mixes, I recommend making your own brine from scratch. It’s surprisingly easy!
Here are the ingredients you’ll need:
- Water
- Kosher salt
- Brown sugar
- Pickling spices
- Curing salts
Combine the water, kosher salt, brown sugar, pickling spices and curing salts in a pot. For extra flavor, you can also add garlic, bay leaves, peppercorns and other aromatics.
Bring the mixture to a boil to dissolve the salt and sugar. Then remove it from the heat and allow it to cool completely before adding your brisket.
Note: It’s important to use curing salt, not typical table salt. Curing salts contain nitrites that prevent bacterial growth while giving the corned beef its characteristic pink hue.
Brining the Brisket
Once your brine is chilled, add the brisket. Submerge the brisket completely in the brine. Weigh it down with a plate if needed.
Refrigerate the brisket in the brine for 7-10 days. This long brine time allows the brisket to become fully seasoned and tenderized.
Flip the brisket over in the brine every couple of days to ensure even curing.
Cooking the Corned Beef
After brining, remove the brisket from the brine and rinse it thoroughly. Discard the used brine.
Place the brisket in a large pot and cover with water. Add your choice of vegetables like carrots, onions, and celery. You can also add any leftover pickling spices for extra flavor.
Bring the pot to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. Allow the corned beef to gently simmer until fork tender, about 2 1⁄2 – 3 hours. The meat should reach an internal temperature of 180-190°F when done.
Slicing and Serving
Once cooked, remove the corned beef from the pot and allow it to rest for 15-20 minutes before slicing. This allows the juices to redistribute so you don’t lose them when you carve it.
To slice the corned beef, carve against the grain in thin slices. This gives you tender, easy-to-chew pieces.
Serve your homemade corned beef warm with sides like cabbage, carrots, potatoes, and a dollop of mustard. You can also let it cool completely before slicing it to use in sandwiches or hash.
Leftover corned beef will keep refrigerated for up to 5 days. Slice and reheat in broth or cooking liquid to serve again.
Tips for the Best Homemade Corned Beef
Follow these tips for flavorful, juicy homemade corned beef every time:
- Use a fresh, well-marbled brisket rather than pre-packaged brisket
- Make your own brine with pickling spices, brown sugar, and curing salt
- Brine the brisket for a full 7-10 days
- Simmer gently; don’t let the corned beef boil
- Let the cooked corned beef rest before slicing against the grain
With its peppery, salty flavor and tender texture, homemade corned beef is a treat. By making it yourself, you can control the quality and flavor. With the simple steps in this guide, you’ll be a corned beef pro in no time!
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I don’t know why I find making corned beef from scratch so intimidating. Perhaps it’s the fact that the project requires almost a week — which means a lot of time for things to go wrong. Maybe it’s because it involves raw meat sitting around for an extended period of time. Or put both together, and I’m worried this giant hunk of raw beef won’t cure properly (even though it ultimately needs to be cooked anyway).
All my anxieties were put to rest after I actually corned my own beef, which proved to be easy, delicious, and more impressive than anything that comes from a can. To tackle this cooking project with confidence, I enlisted the help of Stephen Rodriguez, the executive chef of Tam O’Shanter in Los Angeles. On St. Patrick’s Day alone, Tam O’Shanter serves more than 600 pounds of corned beef. “[Making] corned beef is fun,” Rodriguez says. “There’s a lost art to some of the stuff we do in the cook, like pickling and brining, which is unfortunate, because it’s really easy.”
To start, I needed to make a brine. For Rodriguez, the brine represents a choose-your-own-adventure moment — just don’t forget the pink salt, or curing salt. “The curing salt really drives in that [pink] color,” Rodriguez says. “From there, you can do sugar, garlic cloves, peppercorns, and whatever pickling spice.”
I looked at a few different recipes online for inspiration and winged my brine, adding mustard seed, black peppercorn, bay leaves, garlic, sugar, fennel seeds, and of course, the pink curing salt. Each recipe had a different ratio for how much water to pickling spices was needed; I ensured I made enough to fit the Ziploc bag the beef was going to corn in, which was roughly two cups of boiled brine mixture added to six cups of ice water, eight cups total. I felt like a witch brewing a potion as the mixture came up to a boil. The steam from the cure smelled peppery and sweet; I just hoped it’d be enough to penetrate my two-and-a-half pound brisket. I opted for a flat cut of brisket: It’s leaner with a more compact shape, making it easier to slice once finished. But whole briskets or point cuts can be used as well if you prefer your corned beef shredded — and if you have the space to accommodate all that meat.
Lack of fridge space is often the biggest challenge for those corning beef at home. (At Tam’s, Rodriguez has a dedicated shelf in the restaurant’s walk-in for the task.) My fridge isn’t particularly big, either, but because I recently cleared it out following the fires in Los Angeles, I had enough room for this endeavor. If you have a particularly large brisket slab, Rodriguez suggests breaking it down into smaller pieces to save room. “You can also vacuum pack it and it will take less space,” he advises.
The brine finished steeping after 10 minutes at a boil. I combined the hot mixture with ice water to bring it down in temperature and also ensure the salty pickling liquid wasn’t too concentrated. I placed my brisket into a Ziploc bag and poured the liquid in. If you’re scared of leakage, place the Ziploc in a cake pan or brine your meat in a container with a lid: If you go with the latter option, ensure you completely submerge the brisket in the brine.
After setting the meat-and-brine bag in the fridge, the hard part is over. “Corned beef is really a set-it-and-forget-it project,” Rodriguez says. And forget it I did — aside from turning the bag over every other day to ensure it was curing evenly.
Rodriguez suggests curing for five to seven days. I’m impatient, so I pulled the beef out on the fifth day. I expected it to be pinker; it was a little grey and the meat felt tight, like it had shrunk in on itself. I rinsed the brine from the brisket with cold water and placed it in a Dutch oven with 10 cups of water and fresh peppercorns, bay leaves, and a sprinkling of allspice. From there, I turned the heat up on the stovetop to boil, skimming off any scummy, foamy bits. After 10 minutes, I put the entire Dutch oven in a 300 degree oven, where it was time for the second setting and forgetting. Thanks to the allspice, my house honestly smelled like a cozy pie shop as the corned beef cooked. Three-and-a-half hours later, it was ready.
The first thing I noticed was that the beef was pink! A welcome contrast to the raw beef’s unsettling grey shade, this was a good reminder to trust the process. As I tried to fish the meat slab out of the cooking juices, I also could see how tender the brisket had become. It shredded as I grasped it with a pair of tongs.
I set it on a cutting board and cut myself a slice; the meat fell apart so beautifully that a chef’s knife was only really necessary to get through the fat cap. It was everything you want corned beef to be: juicy, tender, and undoubtedly salty.
To serve, Rodriguez encourages going the traditional route by pairing corned beef with braised cabbage. “At the restaurant, we cook the cabbage in the brining liquid,” he explains. I’d already made a pickled cabbage slaw days prior; the acid in that cut through the fatty beef nicely. And, of course, it wouldn’t be a true corned beef plate without potatoes, which also function as a reprieve from the overwhelming salt.
When I do this again — this cooking project feels worth it, given that it’s surprisingly simple and hands off — I think I’ll trim off more fat from the brisket and use slightly less salt, as my corned beef tasted pretty salty. But I’m sold on the idea that everyone should try corning beef at home. Rodriguez agrees. “Once you make something like this from scratch, you have an appreciation for the artisan [nature] of it,” he says. “It takes you back to the origins of how and why we cook.”
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ST. PATRICK’S DAY FEAST PART 1 | TURNING BEEF BRISKET INTO CORNED BEEF | ALL AMERICAN COOKING
FAQ
How is corned beef made from scratch?
- Make a salty curing brine with pickling spices like mustard seed, allspice berries, coriander seeds, and peppercorns.
- Marinate a beef brisket in the brine, for 5 to 7 days.
- Simmer the brined and drained brisket in water with more pickling spices for several hours until tender.
What cut of meat do you use for corned beef?
Traditional corned beef is made from beef brisket. While you may be able to find brisket in a grocery store, the quality and flavor won’t be near as good as if you sourced your brisket from a local farmer. Reach out to your local farm and ask them if they have brisket available.
What is the secret to the best corned beef?
- Curing the meat with spices, salt, and curing salt gives it corned beef’s characteristic flavor.
- Cooking at a temperature of about 180°F (82°C) for a long period of time ensures the brisket won’t dry out or get tough.
Can you make corned beef with a chuck roast?
Traditionally, corned beef is made from brisket. This cut of beef will give you that iconic, tender, fall-apart thick strips of beef. But if you don’t have a brisket on hand (or you don’t want to splurge for one at the store), you can substitute a chuck roast and it will work fantastically.