Corned beef is a salt-cured brisket that’s simmered until tender. It’s often associated with Irish and Jewish cuisines and it’s a traditional St. Patrick’s Day dish. While you can buy pre-brined corned beef at the grocery store, curing it yourself gives you control over the flavor. With just a few simple ingredients and a bit of patience you can have homemade corned beef with amazing depth of flavor.
What Is Corned Beef?
The term “corned” comes from the Old English word “corn” meaning grains or small bits referring to the coarse grains of salt used to cure the meat. In the past, beef was preserved with large rock salt crystals known as “corns” of salt. Today it’s made by soaking brisket in a saltwater brine.
The brineinfuses the meat with seasoning, adding salty, tangy flavor while also helping preserve it. Traditional pickling spices like coriander, mustard seeds, and black pepper add warm, earthy notes. After brining, the brisket is simmered in liquid for hours until fork tender and served warm, often with cabbage and root vegetables.
Why Make Homemade Corned Beef?
Curing your own corned beef has several advantages over buying pre-brined:
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Custom flavor – Tailor the brine to your taste with any spices and aromatics you like
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Better texture – Home brined is more evenly cured and reliably tender. Store bought can be unevenly salty.
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Cost savings – DIY costs a fraction of packaged. Plus you can brine a larger cut than is available pre-brined.
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Ingredient control – Homemade lets you avoid unnatural additives sometimes used in commercial curing.
Step-By-Step Guide to Making Corned Beef
With a few basic steps, it’s easy to make deliciously flavored corned beef right in your own kitchen.
Step 1 – Prepare the Brine
The brine both cures and flavors the meat. Make it 1-2 days before brining the brisket.
Ingredients:
- 1 gallon water
- 1 cup kosher salt (use less if desired)
- 1⁄2 cup brown sugar
- 2 tablespoons pickling spice blend (store bought or homemade)
- 1 teaspoon pink curing salt (optional, for color and flavor)
Combine all ingredients in a pot and heat until dissolved. Cool completely before using. Reserve a few tablespoons of spice blend to add while cooking.
Note: The pink curing salt provides the characteristic pink color and tangy flavor. It contains nitrites to inhibit bacteria. If omitted, the beef will still cure safely, but will be gray rather than pink. Do not confuse with Himalayan pink salt.
Step 2 – Brine the Brisket
Submerge brisket in brine and refrigerate 1-2 weeks for best flavor, though 5-10 days is adequate. Flip meat over daily.
For a 5 pound brisket, use 1 gallon brine in a stockpot or extra large zip top bag pressed of air. Smaller briskets need less brine – always keep the meat fully submerged.
Step 3 – Rinse and Cook
Rinse off brisket and place in a stockpot. Cover with water or beef broth and add pickling spice blend.
Bring to a boil then gently simmer until fork tender, about 3-4 hours. Skim any foam while cooking.
Let rest 15 minutes before thinly slicing across the grain. Serve warm with mustard and vegetables.
Tips for Making Perfect Corned Beef
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For superior texture and taste, use a flat cut brisket rather than point cut.
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Add any aromatics you like to the brine such as garlic, peppercorns, bay leaves.
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Use a container large enough to fully submerge brisket in brine. Weigh down if needed.
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Curing time depends on brisket size – allow 5 days minimum, up to 2 weeks for ideal flavor.
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Rinse brisket well before cooking to avoid overly salty flavor.
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Cook in broth for fuller flavor; add vegetables the last 30 minutes.
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Slice across the grain for tender slices. Cut thick for sandwiches or thinner for plates.
Why Is Homemade Corned Beef Worth the Wait?
In a world of fast food and instant gratification, taking over a week to make a dish may seem excessive. However, great flavor takes time. The same slow patience that transforms tough brisket into succulent corned beef infuses it with nuanced salty-tangy savor no quick brine can match.
The hands-on time is less than an hour. While the brisket cures undisturbed, make pickles, bake Irish soda bread, and plan your meal. For authentic corned beef flavor, a leisurely brining is time well invested.
Serving Suggestions for Your Home-Cured Corned Beef
Corned beef’s versatility makes it suitable for casual meals through holiday celebrations. Here are serving ideas:
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Corned Beef and Cabbage Boil – The classic Irish-American dish, simple and satisfying. Boil corned beef with potatoes, carrots and cabbage.
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Grilled Reuben Sandwich – Pile sliced corned beef with sauerkraut, Swiss cheese and Russian dressing on rye bread and grill until toasty.
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Hash for Breakfast – Chop corned beef with cooked potatoes and onions for a hearty hash. Top with eggs.
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New England Boiled Dinner – Simmer corned beef with carrots, turnips, potatoes and cabbage for a traditional one-pot meal.
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Corned Beef Salad – Chill sliced corned beef and serve on salad greens with blue cheese, tomato and balsamic vinaigrette.
However you choose to serve it, homemade corned beef is sure to become a new family favorite. The great flavor and versatility make this slow-cured brisket perfect for both casual family meals and celebratory dinners. Give it a try – your patience will be well rewarded!
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How to Cook Corned Beef in an Instant Pot?
Instant Pot method: For a 5 pound brined corned beef brisket. Place the corned beef brisket, fat side up, on a rack. Sprinkle with one tablespoon of pickling spice blend and pour in 4 cups beef broth. Lock the lid in place, close vent. Select High Pressure and set or 90 minutes, with a natural pressure release, NOT a quick pressure release. Remove corned beef and cover with foil to keep warm. Add potatoes, carrots, and cabbage to liquid in pot. Seal with lid and set to HIGH pressure for 3 minutes. Do a Quick pressure release. Serve with corned beef sliced across the grain.
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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.”
How to Make Corned Beef & Cabbage | Allrecipes
FAQ
How do you make corned beef?
- 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?
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Detroit Free Presshttps://www.freep.comIt’s time for corned beef: Three super easy ways to prepare itMar 12, 2021 — Beef brisket is the cut used to make corned beef. A primal cut, it’s a large piece from the breast or lower chest of beef cattle. Brisket is a tough…
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Gourmeli’s Tastehttps://www.gourmelistaste.comGourmeli’s Taste I Corned BeefThere are three different cuts of corned beef – brisket point, brisket flat and round. A brisket in general is a tough cut of beef because of the location of th…
How long is corned beef supposed to be cooked?
For a two to three-pound corned beef brisket, cook for 2 1/2 to 3 hours. For a three to five-pound corned beef brisket, cook for 3 to 3 1/2 hours. STOVE: Place brisket fat-side up in a large pot and cover it with water. Bring the water to a boil; then reduce the heat and simmer, allowing about 1 hour per pound.
What is the secret to the best corned beef?
Simmering corned beef on the stovetop is a tried-and-true method that results in very tender beef. One of the keys to simmering corned beef correctly is the amount of water in the pot. When there’s not ample liquid to cover the meat, your dreams of tender corned beef may be replaced by a tough, chewy result.
What is corned beef made of?
Corned beef is made from beef brisket. The beef brisket is labeled as such in stores and will have a lot of fat on it. Corned beef gets its flavor and color from being brine-cured.
Does corned beef start with a brisket?
Corned beef starts with a brisket cut of beef, says Dell. “You could do it with other cuts, but part of what makes a really good corned beef using a brisket is the fat distribution within the meat. That’s important.”
What is Jewish corned beef?
The Jewish form of corned beef usually involves a preparation in which a cut of beef, traditionally the brisket, is cured in a brine solution along with various seasonings and then slowly simmered until the meat is tender and flavorful. Corned beef can also be made from the beef round primal cut.