Corned beef is a salt-cured brisket that’s simmered until tender and delicious. While you can buy corned beef at the grocery store, making your own homemade corned beef is incredibly simple and allows you to customize the flavor. With just a few basic ingredients and some time for the meat to cure, you can have better-than-deli corned beef with a unique taste all your own.
An Overview of Corned Beef
The term “corned” refers to the coarse grains of salt historically used to cure meats before refrigeration. While we use finer salts today, the name stuck. The curing process involves soaking the brisket in a salty brine infused with spices. This both seasons the meat and preserves it.
After curing for 4-10 days, the corned beef is gently simmered in liquid until fall-apart tender. The end result is a wonderfully seasoned and juicy cut of meat perfect for sandwiches, boiled dinners, or just eating plain. The pink color comes from the curing mix.
Benefits of Homemade
Making your own corned beef has several advantages:
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Custom flavor – You control the spice mix, so you can create a signature taste
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Cost savings – Homemade costs a fraction of high-end deli corned beef.
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Quality ingredients – You can select a high-quality brisket and avoid preservatives
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Fun project – It’s an enjoyable hands-on process from start to finish.
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Impress others – Wow your family and friends with your homemade specialty dish.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Follow these simple steps for outstanding homemade corned beef every time:
1. Choose the Brisket
Select a 3-5 pound beef brisket for corning. Opt for a brisket with good marbling, as the fat keeps the meat moist during cooking. Plan for about 1 pound per person.
2. Make the Brine
The brine is easy to prepare. It consists of:
- Water – Enough to submerge the meat, usually 4-6 quarts
- Salt – 1/2 to 1 cup kosher salt
- Sugar – 1/4 to 1/2 cup white or brown sugar
- Spices – 2-3 tablespoons pickling spice mix
- Curing Salt – 1 tablespoon (optional, for color and flavor)
Bring the brine ingredients to a boil to dissolve the salt and sugar. Let cool completely before using.
3. Soak the Brisket
Place the brisket in a nonreactive container and cover with the chilled brine. Weight it down if needed to keep submerged.
Refrigerate 4 days for a milder flavor up to 10 days for intense corned beef taste. Flip the brisket daily.
4. Rinse and Cook
After curing, remove the brisket and rinse it under cold water. Place it in a pot and cover with water or broth.
Add coarsely chopped veggies if making corned beef and cabbage. Simmer covered for 2 1/2 – 3 1/2 hours until fork tender.
5. Rest, Slice and Serve
Once cooked, let the corned beef rest 15 minutes before slicing across the grain. Serve warm or chilled.
Choosing the Curing Salt
The curing salt, also called pink salt, gives corned beef its signature pink color. It contains sodium nitrite, which prevents bacterial growth. Without it, the meat would have a grayish tone.
You can find curing salt online or at specialty stores under names like pink curing salt #1 or Prague powder #1. Follow package directions as it’s strong stuff – a little goes a long way.
While strictly optional, pink salt enhances flavor and color. But if you prefer to avoid nitrites, just leave it out of the brine.
Pickling Spice Mix Options
One of the best parts about homemade corned beef is customizing the spices! Feel free to get creative with your own signature mixes. Good spices to try include:
- Black peppercorns
- Mustard seeds
- Allspice berries
- Bay leaves
- Coriander seeds
- Red pepper flakes
- Ginger
- Cinnamon sticks
- Cloves
- Cardamom pods
- Fennel seeds
- Crushed juniper berries
Toast the spices briefly to intensify flavors before adding to the brine. You can buy premixed pickling spices, but it’s more fun to make your own mix.
Cooking Methods
While braising on the stovetop is traditional, you can also cook corned beef in a slow cooker, pressure cooker, or oven.
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Stovetop – Cover with liquid in a pot and simmer 3-4 hours.
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Slow cooker – Cook 8-10 hours on low or 4-5 hours on high.
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Pressure cooker – Cook 75-90 minutes with natural release.
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Oven – Cook covered in a 350°F oven for 4+ hours.
Always check for fork tenderness and cook until done. Add veggies the last 30-60 minutes.
Serving Suggestions
Homemade corned beef is incredibly versatile. Here are some tasty ways to serve it:
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Sandwiches with rye bread, sauerkraut, Swiss cheese
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Warm slices with mustard for dipping
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Combined with potatoes, carrots, and cabbage for boiled dinner
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Diced up in hash with potatoes and onions
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Added to soups, stews, and casseroles
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Wrapped in cabbage leaves for rolls
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Topped with fried eggs for breakfast
Storing Leftovers
Leftover corned beef will keep 4-5 days refrigerated. For longer storage, slice and freeze up to 2-3 months.
To reheat, simmer in broth until warmed through, or sauté slices in butter. Use in potato pancakes, scrambled eggs, pizza, sandwiches, and more.
Make Your Own Signature Corned Beef
As you can see, making DIY corned beef is much simpler than you may have thought. While it does take some time, the actual hands-on work is minimal. The rewards are a uniquely flavored home-cured brisket for a fraction of the cost of store-bought.
Try out different spice blends until you find your perfect combination. And adjust the curing time to suit your preferred level of saltiness. Once you master the basic method, you can tinker to create your own signature corned beef.
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what you’ll need for homemade corned beef
- beef brisket
- beef brisket is a popular cut for slow-cooking methods, such as smoking or braising, because it has a lot of connective tissue that breaks down and becomes tender with long, slow cooking. Beef brisket is commonly smoked (for traditional Texas-style barbecue,) braised (think Passover dinner with a rich gravy,) or corned (for sandwiches or St. Paddy’s Day.) I used a large 5 lb brisket, but you can easily halve this recipe for a smaller piece of meat.
- Kosher salt
- pink salt
- Pink curing salt, also known as Prague powder, is a type of salt that is used in the process of curing meats and other food products. It’s a mixture of regular table salt and sodium nitrite, which gives it a pinkish color. Pink salt helps preserve meat by inhibiting the growth of bacteria, preventing spoilage, and preserving the meat’s color and flavor. It’s commonly used in the production of cured meats such as bacon, ham, and salami, as well as in pickling and preserving other types of food. The gorgeous red color of corned beef is due to this salt. Find it online here.
- sugar
- adding sugar to the brine for corned beef can improve the flavor, texture, and appearance of the meat. Sugar is a natural tenderizer, and inhibits the growth of harmful bacteria.
- garlic
- pickling spices*
- if you don’t want to make your own blend you can easily find it in the spice section of your supermarket, look in the spice mix section.
- carrot
- onion
- celery
How to Cook Corned Beef in the Pressure Cooker?
I think the term pressure cooker brings back bad memories or scary stories of exploding kitchen pots, so with a rebranding of the kitchen cooking utensil, a more user friendly name is todays Instant Pot.
Pressure Cooker method: For a 5 pound brined corned beef brisket. Place corned beef on rack. Sprinkle with one tablespoon of pickling spice blend and pour in 4 cups beef broth or cover with water.
Lock the lid in place. Select High Pressure and set the timer for 90 minutes. Turn off the heat and allow to rest, sealed for 10 minutes, then uncover. 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.
Homemade Corned Beef Recipe – Corn your own beef!
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 to make 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.
What is the main ingredient of corned beef?
Corned beef is most often made from beef brisket (a relatively inexpensive, tough cut of beef) that’s been cured in a salt brine with a mix of spices, like bay leaf, peppercorns, mustard seed, juniper berries, coriander seed, and whole cloves.
Can You Make your own corned beef?
Healthy – making your own corned beef means you know exactly what’s in the meat and the brine, which is a much healthier alternative to the junk in the grocery store. You can make corned beef out of a brisket, or a roast. The brisket will have a more distinct grain which is typical of a corned beef, but the roast turns out almost the same.
Can you make corned beef from scratch?
Fall apart tender corned beef is easy to make from scratch and will produce better flavor than store bought! Just make sure to allow the meat to brine for 7-10 days before Saint Patrick’s Day. Combine all the spices in a bowl. Reserve.
How do you cook corned beef?
Rinse the excess salt mixture from the corned beef. Place the beef in a pot. If it’s too big to fit, cut it into smaller pieces and wedge them in together. Cover the beef with at least an inch of water. If you are using a Smoke to track your cook, use the Smokehouse probe and a pot clip for the water temp and a waterproof needle probe for the meat.
Can you cook corned beef in a crock pot?
You can make your corned beef and cabbage in a crock pot, a large pot on the stove top, or baked in the oven in a dutch oven pot at 350 degrees for about 3 hours. Cooking a corned beef is very similar to cooking a roast.
How do you make a brine for corned beef?
To make the brine for corned beef, add 2 cups water, salt, sugar, curing salt, mustard seeds, black peppercorns, cloves, allspice berries, juniper berries and bay leaves into a small saucepot over medium heat. Bring to a boil then reduce heat to simmer, stirring occasionally, until the salt and sugar have dissolved. Pour into a large bowl and add 4 cups of ice water.
How can I add more flavor to corned beef?
To spice up your corned beef, add about 3 tablespoons of the spice mix (reserve the rest for cooking the corned beef after it has cured), along with a half stick of cinnamon, to a gallon of water in a large pot. Also, include kosher salt, pink salt (if using), and brown sugar.