I’m pleased to have our friend David Maren of Tendergrass Farms pen today’s guest post. He’s written this great how-to for making your own delicious pastured turkey jerky.
Most folks who make turkey jerky just make beef jerky out of turkey. They tend to use lots of teriyaki sauce, sugar, and Worcestershire sauce to mask the turkey-ness of the turkey. To each his own, but in my opinion this is a real shame. After all, turkey is super scrumptious! Especially if you go to the trouble of getting some good quality pastured turkey, you’ll want to preserve its essential turkey flavor as a special feature of your turkey jerky.
We’ve discovered an extremely simple way to make delicious, high-protein, sugar-free, turkey jerky that will not only taste and look nothing like beef jerky, but will also magically transport you back to your childhood Thanksgiving dinner table. In fact, between you and me, I think it tastes a lot like buttery mashed potatoes and gravy. But no worries – it’s about as primal as primal can be.
This recipe is the very pinnacle of culinary simplicity. You’ll need:
It’ll take about 10 minutes of prep time and then the jerky will need to be in the oven for 6 to 10 hours (depending on your oven and how thinly you cut the turkey strips).
You should really think about supporting a family farmer by purchasing some decent pastured turkey breast to make your jerky with. EatWild.com has a helpful directory of grass-based farmers across the USA, Canada, and beyond that would love your support. If you can’t find any local pastured turkey sources our little cooperative online meats shop, Tendergrass Farms, offers pastured turkey breast that we can ship right to your doorstep.
Once you’ve procured some good turkey breast, the first step is to cut it into very thin slices. There’s no danger of cutting them too thin, so just get a nice sharp knife and cut the pieces as thinly as you can. It’s best to keep them as even in thickness as possible to help them dehydrate at the same rate.
The second step is to sprinkle the turkey strips with a little salt and pepper. Salt and pepper the turkey just a little more than you would any other food that you were about to eat. The purpose of the salt and pepper is simply to bring out the natural flavor of the turkey, not to mummify it!
The third and final step is to skewer the strips of seasoned turkey with your kabob skewers (or wooden chop sticks) and hang the skewers from the upper rack of your oven. Just make sure than the strips are spaced out well to allow the strips to evenly dehydrate. Turn your oven on to 200 ºF, but don’t quite close your oven door. It works well to stick a nice big wooden spoon or other similar object in the door of the oven to allow just an inch or so opening for the humidity to escape from the oven as the turkey dehydrates.
Check on it periodically. At 200 ºF, with the oven slightly cracked open, it may take anywhere from 6 to 10 hours. This depends entirely on the thickness of your turkey strips and your particular oven, so it could be slightly shorter or longer depending on those factors. When the strips are completely hard to the touch with no hint of soft raw meat texture, your jerky’s done! It’s best to keep it in zip-top bags in the freezer, especially if you don’t think you’ll eat it all within a week or so.
David Maren is a husband, father, farmer, and co-founder of Tendergrass Farms. Tendergrass Farms is a cooperative online grass fed meats shop that exists as a bridge between the often geographically isolated family farmer and committed grass fed meats enthusiasts like yourself. The Tendergrass Farms vision is to sustain family farms through making it easy for you to purchase their meats by taking advantage of appropriate technology and ultra-efficient transportation models that enable their meats to be shipped to fans all around the USA.
If you’re not already a huge fan of Tendergrass Farms, you’re missing out: Go bookmark their site, like their Facebook page, and follow them on Twitter!
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