How To Cure Corned Beef From Scratch That Outshines Store Bought

Yes—you can slash the cost in half and double the flavor by making corned beef at home instead of buying it

Corned Beef Is Uncooked!

PSA: Curing meats such as bacon, ham, or pastrami is fun and the results are often better than store bought. But curing is very different from any other recipe because you are using a preservative, sodium nitrite. You must read and thoroughly understand my article on the Science Of Curing Meats before attempting to cure meat or before you ask any questions regarding this corned beef brisket recipe.

About homemade corned beef

When we mention homemade corned beef your first question has to be “Why bother?”. And the answer is simple: Homemade corned beef brisket tastes better than anything you could ever pick up at your local grocery store. Plus it costs less. Half as much in many cases and sometimes more!

The commercial stuff, especially the cheap stuff mass marketed for St. Patrick’s Day for Irish wannabes, is usually made by taking shortcuts that result in odd flavors and weird gelatinous textures.

The homemade stuff from this corned beef recipe can also be cheaper. And it’s easy. And you can customize it. Once you’ve had the real deal, you won’t go back. It doesn’t take much effort. It just takes time. So start now.

What is corned beef?

Corned beef is beef brisket that has been salt-cured in a seasoned brine containing curing salt (sodium nitrite), sugar, and aromatic spices. Corned beef has no corn. OK, maybe the steer ate some corn, but no corn is harmed in the process of corning beef. Actually, to be precise, corn was the old British name for grain before corn on the cob was discovered in North America and usurped the name. A “corn of salt” was as common an expression as a “grain of salt” is today. So corned beef is really just another named for salted beef.

Unlike pastrami, corned beef is typically not smoked. Instead, it is gently simmered, braised, or sometimes sous-vide cooked until tender. The curing process gives corned beef its characteristic rosy pink color, firm texture, and distinctive savory flavor.

History

Corned beef was a World War II staple among civilians in Great Britain and among the troops in Europe because fresh meats were hard to come by. It came in a can. Sliced corned beef is especially popular in Jewish delicatessens where it is a sandwich staple. But, you can make it even better with our corned beef recipe!

So corning has become another name for curing or pickling. Yes, we are pickling the meat in this corned beef brisket recipe. This is an ancient process invented to preserve meat before the days of refrigeration: pack it in salt or soak it in a concentrated brine and it lasts longer. In recent years, people have also begun curing meat by injecting it with salt. The process was probably discovered when some ancient hunter speared a deer and it fell into the ocean and washed ashore a couple of weeks later. Surprisingly instead of bloating and turning foul, the meat had been preserved, and tasted pretty good.

Why you’ll love this corned beef recipe

• Authentic flavor from scratch – No prepackaged seasoning packets. You control the spice profile.
• Perfectly balanced brine – Designed for full flavor and curing without excessive saltiness.
• Ideal for pastrami or classic corned beef dinners – A foundational recipe.
• Predictable results – Accurate amounts and curing times with our exclusive curing calculator.
• Better than store-bought – The flavor and texture are miles ahead of commercial corned beef.

Ingredients and substitutions

• Beef brisket (flat or point): Brings rich beef flavor and chewy, satisfying texture. Substitute: Beef plate or beef navel (traditional deli cut). Avoid lean roasts.
• Kosher salt: An important curing, preservation, and flavor agent. Substitute: Kosher salt is half the concentration of table salt, so if you use table salt (fine salt), use half as much.
• Pink Curing Salt #1 (Prague Powder #1): Sodium nitrite for food safety. Use only in pre-calculated amounts and, before you begin, bone up on the Science of Curing Meat safely. There’s no substitute for pink curing salt #1.
• Pickling Spice (optional): It’s common to add black pepper, coriander seed, mustard seed, bay leaf, clove, and allspice to the pickling/curing brine. You might think the spices make sense if your corned beef is destined to become homemade pastrami. However, the flavors don’t penetrate far. If you use a pre-mixed spice blend or our pickling spice recipe, use 4-5 tablespoons of the pickling spice in the brine, and add a couple tablespoons of brown sugar and about 4 smashed garlic cloves.

Buying beef to make corned beef

A vital part of the process for this corned beef recipe is your selection of the meat. Corned beef is usually a section of the brisket. It is sometimes made from navel, but that cut is so fatty and sinewy that I cannot recommend it. The waste is great and the eating experience is inferior. I have seen other muscles used, but not very often. Brisket is cut from the pectoral muscles, a pair of thick muscles from the steer’s chest, and a whole “packer” brisket is a large hunk of meat made of two muscles and can weigh 12 to 18 pounds. It can be bought whole but is usually cut near the middle and sold as flat or point.

The chest of a steer consists of heavily worked muscles, so these are tough cuts. Turning brisket into corned beef is a great way to tenderize and flavorize this cut, and a reminder of how to preserve meat without refrigeration. Give it a try!

Beef brisket is thicker at one end than the other. We recommend you separate the two muscles, the point and the flat, if they are not already separate when you buy the meat. This will leave you with slabs no thicker than 3 inches and will speed the curing time and insure that the cure penetrates all the way to the center. While you’re at it, remove the copious amounts of fat from between the two muscles. It does nothing to enhance flavor; on the contrary, it tastes yucky, and it impedes movement of the cure.

How to make homemade corned beef

Expert tips

• Choose your ideal cut: The brisket flat slices neatly. The brisket point is fattier and richer. If you buy a whole packer brisket you can cure both.
• Use accurate measurements: Curing salt must be measured precisely for food safety. Measure all ingredients by weight, not volume. Measure the meat thickness as well, and use our exclusive curing calculator for precise calculations of how much curing salt to use and how long to cure the meat.
• Keep it cold: Always cure below 40°F to prevent bacterial growth.
• Allow the full cure time: Food safety is paramount. Cure the meat for the full amount of time specified by our curing calculator. Keep the meat submerged to prevent uneven flavor and potential food safety problems.
• Make ahead: Start now! The curing process takes 5 days on average. Once cured and cooked corned beef keeps refrigerated for another 4 to 5 days. Vacuum sealed, it freezes well for 2 to 3 months.
• Slice properly: Always slice brisket against the grain to make it easier to chew (more tender). Look for parallel lines in the meat (the muscle fibers), and cut across those muscle fibers.

Corned beef FAQs

Homemade Corned Beef Recipe

---

Tried this recipe?Tell others what you thought of it and give it a star rating below.

4.61 from 374 votes

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Store-bought corned beef is OK in a pinch but nothing beats the homemade version featured in our famous recipe! Now before you get started, note that this page is only about making raw corned beef. The next step is cooking it. Options include traditional corned beef and cabbage boiled dinner, corned beef hash, or even Reuben sandwiches. If you want, you can add a BBQ touch by smoking it and using the Texas Crutch to turn it into incredible homemade pastrami. Remember, curing meats is fun and the results are better than store-bought but curing is very different from any other recipe because you are using a preservative, sodium nitrite. You must read and thoroughly understand my article on the Science Of Curing Meats before attempting to cure meat or before you ask any questions regarding this recipe.

Serve with: Guinness.

---

Course:

Brunch

,

Dinner

,

entree

,

Lunch

Cuisine:

Irish

,

Irish-American

,

Jewish

Author: Pitmaster

---

Takes:

Prep Time: 1 hour hour

Cure Time: Cure time is calculated and displayed automatically below based on ingredient quantities entered in the provided fields.

---

Ingredients

 

Enter the weight of the meat here: (you can leave the fat cap on if you wish).		pounds pounds kilograms
Squeeze the meat into a cylinder and enter the thickness of the meat here:	inches	inches centimeters

The quantities on the following ingredients will be calculated based on what you entered above.

1.00 Gallon(s) warm distilled water.

cups
quarts
US gallons
liters

  or    of Prague powder #1

 

Meat Shape

flat
tube or cone

Cure time: 0.8 days

---

Notes:

About the Prague Powder #1. This recipe calls for Prague Powder #1 (curing salt #1). No other curing agent can be substituted. No Prague Powder #2, TenderQuick, or saltpeter. Chemically they are different.

About the beef. Many delis use the fattier navel cut. You can also use boneless short rib meat, flank steak, tongue, or round, but round can be very thick, so cut in into 1.5″ planks. For that matter you can use any cut you want, but brisket is my fave. The flat is leaner and make perfect slices. The point muscle is fattier and juicier but doesn’t slice as perfectly.

About the salt. Remember, kosher salt is half the concentration of table salt so if you use table salt, use half as much. Click here to read more about salt and how it works.

What? No pickling spices? They really aren’t necessary. They don’t penetrate deep. But if you must, you can buy them premixed or click here for a recipe for pickling spices that you can make yourself. Add 4 to 5 tablespoons, a couple of tablespoons of brown sugar, and 4 cloves of garlic, crushed.

Metric conversion:

These recipes were created in US Customary measurements and the conversion to metric is being done by calculations. They should be accurate, but it is possible there could be an error. If you find one, please let us know in the comments at the bottom of the page

Method

• Prep. Find a proper non-reactive container large enough to handle 1 gallon (3.9 L) of brine and the meat as described in our article Science Of Curing Meats Safely. Clean it as described.
• Mix the cure ingredients and the distilled water. Stir until they dissolve.
• Trim. If the meat you buy has two layers of meat separated by a layer of fat, you have both flat and point muscles. Separate them and remove the fat. Also remove as much fat as possible from the exterior unless you plan to use some of it for pastrami. In that case, leave a 1/8″ (3.2 mm) layer on one side. Because corned beef is cooked in simmering water, the fat just gets gummy and unappetizing. But if you plan to make pastrami from it, you will be smoking the meat and in that case the fat gets succulent and lubricates the sandwich. I like to buy a full packer brisket and separate the point from the flat, and cut the flat in half. That gives me 3 manageable hunks of 2 to 4 pounds each. If you leave the point attached to the flat beneath, it will be very thick and take longer to cure, and there’s an ugly hunk of fat between them.
• Cure. Add the meat to the curing solution. If you have more than one slab do not let them lie on top of each other. If you do, they will act like one thick slab and curing will take much longer. The meat might float, so put a plastic bowl filled with brine on top of the meat until it submerges. The meat will drink up brine so make sure there is enough to cover it by at least 1″ (25 mm) or else you’ll find the meat high and dry after a few days. Refrigerate. Let it swim for as long as the calculator tells you. Move the meat every day or so just to stir up the cure. The liquid will get cloudy from juices that come out of the meat, but it should never smell bad. When you are done, the exterior of the meat will be pale tan or gray and if you cut into it, it should not look too different than normal raw meat, just a little pinker.
  
• Cook. Now decide how you want to cook it. You can make traditional corned beef and cabbage boiled dinner, you can make corned beef hash, you can make Rockin Reuben Sandwiches, or turn it into Close to Katz’s Pastrami like in this video from our friends at ThermoWorks.

---

Nutrition per Serving

Calories: 264kcal | Protein: 35g | Fat: 13g | Saturated Fat: 4g | Cholesterol: 105mg | Sodium: 1257mg | Potassium: 562mg | Calcium: 23mg | Iron: 3mg

Cape Canaveral and Corned Beef In Space

When I was in high school I lived in Florida on Merritt Island (MIHS Mustangs, Class of ’67), spitting distance from Cape Canaveral, as Cape Kennedy was known back then. Many of the parents of my classmates worked on the NASA space program. When there were launches at night, you could read a newspaper in my backyard from the immense light. The ground trembled, and the dogs howled.

I was also a lifeguard at a Florida hotel on Cocoa Beach that was partially owned by the seven original astronauts. And because they hung out there, I got to know them. I even got darkroom lessons from the AP photographer who had a room there that he used as a darkroom. Just up the road was my favorite restaurant, Wolfie’s, a deli famous for corned beef and pastrami and pickled green tomatoes.

The Original Seven

Gus Grissom was my favorite of the Mercury Seven, a.k.a. the Original Seven astronauts to fly in space. He and John Young rode the first two-man Gemini capsule on March 23, 1965. Well, it turns out that the astronauts loved Wolfie’s deli too. Since they didn’t love the space food they were given to eat, Young slipped a corned beef sandwich from Wolfie’s into his space suit. Young had the honor of being the first astronaut to be reprimanded about his behavior in space because of this stunt. These guys were test pilots—fearless, ladies men, and jokesters—who didn’t always play by the rules. We won’t get into what happened in the room they kept for themselves at the hotel. I’ll never tell. Unless you’re buying.

While I’m reminiscing, I’ll never forget the evening of January 27, 1967. I was at a Mustangs basketball game when the game stopped and the PA asked all NASA engineers and other contractors to report to the Cape. We later heard that Gus, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee had burned to death in a pre-flight practice in the Apollo 1 capsule. I was heartbroken at the passing of my hero. I always think of Gus when I have a corned beef sammy.