Usually, when we talk about dehydrating beef jerky, we do it in our dehydrator appliance. But what if it suddenly died a natural death and beef jerky happens to be one of your favorite food to go at home? What are the things you can do?
Do you know how to dehydrate beef jerky in the air fryer? And you will be surprised that it will taste just as good. Look around in your kitchen storage and chances are you have one.
The popular Air Fryers usually have 4 functions: air fry (main function), roast, reheat and dehydrate. If an appliance says it’s an air fryer, it’s supposed to be its best function and the other modes it has are just secondary. Well then, your dehydrator died, so let’s give this one a try.
To disprove your doubts, why not do an experiment? Slice a banana into a couple of pieces and dehydrate them. If the slices will look and taste like the dehydrated banana chips you buy from the store, then the air fryer has in it the proven capability to dehydrate beef jerky as well.
Now it’s time for you to prepare that round steak to make your favorite beef jerky in the air dryer. It’s most probable it would do a good job on the steak as it did on the banana.
If you are fond of experimenting with new recipes, and find joy in tasting something different, you can play around with this recipe for beef jerky. If you follow it thoroughly while using the air fryer, you will not only have a dehydrated beef jerky, but also a tasty beef jerky.
Before anything else, the choice of ingredients of yours. Your taste buds will be different from other people who also love beef jerky. What’s important is that steps 3, 4 and 5 are followed. The process of cutting and placing the meat properly on the air fryer is essential. It is also important to know the speed in which the air fryer is dehydrating the meat.
HOW TO DEHYDRATE BEEF JERKY IN THE AIR FRYER
Your Ingredients are:
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
1/3 cup hot sauce
1 TSP onion powder
1 TSP garlic powder
1/2 TSP black pepper
1/2 TSP oregano
1/2 TSP cumin
A pinch of salt
1 to 2 pounds round steak or any beef types of your preference.
Instructions:
- You need to combine all the ingredients in a large bowl. Make sure that all the ingredients and the meat won’t spill over when you go through the motions of mixing them up. This means the bowl should be big enough to prevent spillage. The quantity of spice of the marinade could be adjusted according to your taste. It could be mild or it could be very spicy. You can use regular soy sauce or the low sodium soy sauce alternative. You might want to add salt according to the taste profile you want to get out of your beef jerky.
- Cut the meat into chunks. If possible, get the best quality meat, like grass fed organic beef round steak. If you are used to using a regular dehydrator, it usually has substantial space for the meat. But since you’re using the air fryer, and it’s just a single small tray, you can’t lay in long strips of meat. So instead, slice the meat into small 1 to 2 inches chunks. Also be aware that the meat chunks are sliced thinner than usual. They don’t have to be in perfect shape, but the thinness is important. This is just to make sure the dehydration process works well on thinner meat.
- Its not yet time to put the meat on the air dryer. You still have to marinate it and let all the goodness of the tasty ingredients sponge through. Marinate the meat for 6 to 12 hours in the fridge. The longer the marinade time, the better tasting the beef jerky will be.
- After those hours of marinating, it’s time for the meat to be on the tray of the air fryer. You can place the chunks near each other, but never on top of each other. The air fryer is expected to have strong air circulation even if you place the pieces of meat near each other, so the beef jerky will dehydrate just fine on the small tray.
- You will be surprised to know that dehydrating in an air fryer will take less time than when you do it in a regular dehydrator. Put on a temperature of 165 degrees Fahrenheit for 6 to 8 hours. Halfway through, flip the meat chunks and move them to other parts of the tray to make sure all parts of the meat are properly dehydrated.
Now, you know how to dehydrate beef jerky in the air fryer. The only inconvenience is that you can’t dehydrate in big batches of meat in the air fryer because of the smaller tray. But the probable chance of a quicker dehydration time on the air fryer compared to the regular dehydrator is also one pleasant convenience.