Make beef in aspic yourself – really tasty

Today I’m going to show you how to make a delicious beef in aspic by yourself. It’s simple and super quick to make.

Beef in aspic is a nice change from the classic aspic. It’s perfect for a snack or as a dinner.

I cure my beef for 3 days before it is further processed. So plan with this time ahead.

I use Bloom 240 aspic powder in my recipe, but you can also cook out pigs feet and pork shank. These cuts have a lot of collagen. This makes the beef firm on its own after it cools. See my german Sülze recipe for instructions.

Here you can find the complete beef in aspic recipe as a video or to read through.

Have fun and good luck making it!

Table of Contents

Beef in Aspic – What do you need to make it?

per kg beef in aspic:

500 g beef (e.g. beef brisket)
250 g pickles
250 g final aspic (10% vinegar and 90% cooking broth)
Aspic powder Bloom 240 depending on the desired strength 40 – 50g /1liter

For curing per kg of meat

22.5 g salt
2.5 g cure #1
3 g sugar

Per liter of broth for cooking

100 % water
20 g salt
50 g onions
1.5 medium bay leaves
1.5 g pepper
0.75 g allspice
0.25 g cloves

The equipment to make beef in aspic

Artificial casing / Jar / Can

You can fill the sausage into jars as well as artificial casings. For jars, I usually use ones from the Weck company. For artificial casings I recommend artificial casings caliber 45/25 for a smaller diameter and artificial casings caliber 60/25 for a slightly wider one.

Vacuum Sealer

For the stress-free “curing in vacuum” method you need a vacuumizer. If you don’t have one yet, you can check out my recommendation here.

Alternative: “Real dry curing” doesn’t require a vacuum sealer, read my article on the subject of curing.

Make beef in aspic – Step-By-Step Instructions

Day #1:

1. Weigh the beef. Based on the weight, weigh out your salt, cure#1 and sugar mixture.

2. Pour the salt, cure #1 and sugar mixture over your beef. Make sure each side is covered with the mixture.

3. Place the beef in a vacuum bag and vacuum seal. Alternatively, you can use a zip-lock bag (the air should be pushed out as much as possible). It is important that the complete salt/cure#1/sugar mixture is in the bag with it.

4. Cure the meat per cm thickness for about 1.5 days. In my case, it was cured after 3 days.

Day “2” (curing process completed):

5. Quarter the onion.

6. Put the onions, water and spices (except for the aspic powder) in a pot.

7. Stir the ingredients and put the meat in the broth. Make sure that the meat is covered with water.

8. Let it simmer for about 2-3 hours until the meat is tender. Again, the time varies with the thickness of the meat. If it is still too firm -> let it simmer further.

9. Cut the pickles into strips.

10. Once the meat is cooked through, you can take it out of the broth. As you can see in the picture, it is super tender.

11. Now pull the beef apart with two forks.

Optional: If you don’t want strips, but rather pieces, you can put the meat through a meat grinder. Then I also recommend you to cut the cucumbers into cubes instead of strips.

12. Mix the meat with the pickle strips.

13. Pass the broth through a sieve. It is best to put an additional kitchen paper in the sieve. This way the broth will be as clear as possible.

14. Weigh your broth and add the vinegar. I end up using about 25% of the sausage as aspic. But the amount is up to you, depending on whether you want a lot or a little aspic in the final cut.

15. Add the aspic powder to the liquid and mix well. If the aspic powder has not dissolved, you can heat the liquid again. However, the broth with the aspic should not boil anymore. The amount depends on which aspic powder you use. The final aspic should be firm to the touch.