Nutrition
| Per 100 g | Per 1 oz (28 g) | |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 331 kcal | 94 kcal |
| Protein | 51.5 g | 14.6 g |
| Fat | 6.4 g | 1.8 g |
| saturated | 1.7 g | 0.5 g |
| Carbohydrate | 13.1 g | 3.7 g |
| sugars | 10.1 g | 2.9 g |
| Fibre | 1.3 g | 0.4 g |
| Sodium | 3456 mg | 980 mg |
Estimated from the ingredients, for the finished dried product. Actual values vary with the produce you use and how far you dry it.
Ingredients
Instructions
- Trim the white tendon out of each chicken tender before you do anything else. It never softens, and it is the thing that makes a piece of chicken jerky impossible to bite through.
- Seal the tenders in a bag and work them out to 6 mm with the flat side of a mallet. Pounding rather than slicing is what keeps chicken in one piece — sliced raw, it shreds.
- Stir the two sauces, salt, ginger, garlic, onion powder, pepper flakes, brown sugar and paprika together until the sugar has dissolved. Sugar left in grains sinks and the strips at the bottom of the bag end up sweet while the rest are salty.
- Marinate the chicken in the fridge overnight, pressing the air out of the bag so every piece stays under the liquid.
- Lift the strips out, shake off the loose marinade, and lay them on mesh without overlap. Poultry has to have air on both faces the whole time, and an overlap is where trouble starts.
- Dehydrate at 66 °C for 11 hours, and do not drop the temperature to save the texture. That setting is what keeps chicken safe through a long run at low humidity.
- A finished strip tears into dry fibres and shows no pink, translucent or glossy patch anywhere in the torn face. Tear one open rather than bending it — chicken tests differently from beef, and a bend tells you very little.
- Cool the strips fully, then keep them in a sealed jar in the fridge and eat them within two weeks, or freeze them for three months. Chicken jerky is not a pantry item, and any piece that still feels damp should be thrown out rather than stored.
