What is curing salt?

Simple version is: It’s food preservation in meat processing.

Really, what is curing salt? Curing salt is made of mostly table salt (sodium chloride) and sodium nitrite.

Table salt 93.75% to Sodium nitrite 6.25% It’s also called Prague powder #1, Insta cure #1 and Pink Salt #1. This is the ratio used for bacon, or a short cure for meat that will be cooked.

What does it do to the meat?

Curing salt gives the meat that is being cured…like bacon…it’s pinkish color. It also helps to prevent spoilage.

Why did curing salt get a bad name?

Curing meat has been around for a very long time. Botulism is a very real thing. Nitrites were thought to have prevented or helped to prevent botulism. “A study by the British Meat Producers Association determined that the legally permitted levels of nitrite have no effect on the growth of the Clostridium botulinum bacteria that causes botulism, in line with the UK’s Advisory Committee on the Microbiological Safety of Food opinion that nitrites are not required to prevent C. Botulinum growth and extend shelf life.” (source: Wikipedia)

If you have cured meat like bacon with just salt (sodium chloride) you would know that cured meat is not pink with out the nitrite. Yep, Meat is brownish in color when smoked without it. This plays a big factor for someone eating cured meat. People eat with all their senses. Marketing has taught us that our bacon and ham should be pink in color. The pink color in curing salt (pink salt) is food dye. This is done to prevent the curing salt from being used as just table salt. It isn’t good for your to digest it. Curing salt is washed off before smoking or aging the meat being cured.

Nitrites are an antioxidant…they do help keep the meat from breaking down and becoming rancid and having an unappetizing flavor. You know if you eat some vegetables you are eating natural nitrites, spinach, radishes, lettuce, celery, carrots, cabbage, and beets.

Is there a natural alternative way to get nitrites in curing salt?

Yes, saltpeter (saltpetre), or potassium nitrate. They also use vegetable powders to get the nitrites needed to add to the table salt for curing.

You get to decide what works best for you.

Curing bacon is simple and you don’t need any thing fancy.

You can just use salt without the nitrites. The USDA doesn’t let the processors do that. But you can at home safely and successfully.

• Pork belly – Recommend sourcing your meat from a quality producer or raising your own where you know how the animal has been treated and what it was fed.

• Sea salt – Redmond Real Salt is what we use. It’s a mined salt that’s not 100% water-soluble, it will leave a small residue on the pork itself (these are minerals). It’s great to use and makes it harder to over-salt the pork because it has a courser grind. Kosher salt is not recommended because it dissolves so quickly that it’s easy to over-salt the pork.

• Curing vessel – For the curing vessels, avoid using aluminum and stick to something that’s either plastic, glass, or stainless steel. For an ideal setup, get a couple of plastic restaurant bussing tubs so that you can drill holes in one that’s stacked in another to catch the liquid that comes off the meat. If your meat is allowed to sit in the liquid that gets pulled out of the meat, it will become overly salty.

• Additional ingredients – Along with the salt, you can add ingredients that will impart flavor to your cured meat. For bacon, a 50/50 mixture of salt and sugar. Alternatively, you could add in herbs, seasonings, etc.

Thoroughly rinse and pat dry the pork belly, being sure to trim any flaps of loose meat from your pork belly.

1. Create a setup with your curing vessel to allow for liquid to drain out the bottom. Be sure to have a pan or another vessel underneath to catch the liquids.

2. Layer a 50/50 mixture of salt and sugar into a large, rimmed container to completely cover the bottom of the vessel, a couple of inches deep, at least.

3. Place the pork belly into the salt/sugar mixture and press the meat so it coats all surfaces of the meat.

4. Remove pork from the salt/sugar mixture and place it into the clean curing vessel.

5. Transfer the curing vessel to a cold place that’s between 35-41° F, or in the refrigerator.

6. Let the pork cure for 5 days.

7. Rinse off the pork to remove the salt/sugar mixture and rinse well with water.

8. Pat the pork belly dry and store it, hanging, in the pantry or kitchen. Bacon hooks work great for this and hanging in an area away from dust or high traffic.