For those who enjoy the right amount of heat and sweetness, we’re sure you’ll find this to be your favorite sweet and spicy beef jerky recipe. For family gatherings, athletic events, camping, or hiking excursions, this is the ultimate treat. The ingredient that unites the flavors is pineapple juice. The flavor of the peppers is very potent, so use caution when using them.
| Prep Time: | 15 mins |
| Cook Time: | 5 hrs |
| Additional Time: | 3 hrs 15 mins |
| Total Time: | 8 hrs 30 mins |
| Servings: | 4 |
Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon onion powder
- 1 tablespoon garlic powder
- 2 teaspoons cracked black pepper, or to taste
- 1 pound lean beef sirloin tip, sliced into 1/8 inch strips
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ⅔ cup soy sauce
- ½ cup pineapple juice
- ⅓ cup balsamic vinegar
- ¼ cup teriyaki sauce
- ¼ cup Worcestershire sauce
- 5 tablespoons liquid smoke flavoring
- 1 teaspoon red pepper flakes, or to taste (Optional)
Instructions
- Mix together onion powder, garlic powder, and black pepper in a small bowl or cup. Season beef lightly, using only part of the spice blend and reserving the rest. Place beef into an airtight plastic container or bowl, and refrigerate.
- Stir together brown sugar, soy sauce, pineapple juice, balsamic vinegar, teriyaki sauce, Worcestershire sauce, and liquid smoke flavoring. Heat until brown sugar has completely dissolved. Refrigerate marinade until cool.
- Pour cooled marinade over the seasoned meat, and mix by hand to coat. Seal the bowl, and refrigerate for at least 3 hours.
- Arrange beef strips on the rack of a dehydrator, and sprinkle with a little bit more of the spice mixture and red pepper flakes. Dry for 5 hours, or to your desired dryness.
- Use an electric knife and slice a semi-frozen sirloin for ease of cutting and for thinner, more uniform slices.
Nutrition Facts
| Calories | 527 kcal |
| Carbohydrate | 47 g |
| Cholesterol | 60 mg |
| Dietary Fiber | 1 g |
| Protein | 23 g |
| Saturated Fat | 7 g |
| Sodium | 3319 mg |
| Sugars | 39 g |
| Fat | 28 g |
| Unsaturated Fat | 0 g |
Reviews
I bring the liquid smoke down to just 1tblsp, 1tsp pepper, no red pepper flakes, mix all ingredients together, marinade overnight, then cook on my lowest oven temp (170) until done. I also use 2lbs of meat precut to 1/8″ slabs. I love it and so has everyone I’ve shared with!
Loved this jerky recipe. I used Thai Hot peppers for extreme heat. Fun to share with co-workers and watch them squirm and sweat, but still want more! Next time I do the marinade I’m going to double the brown sugar and pineapple juice portions, and add a half cup of crushed pineapple to see what it does for the sweet half of the recipe.
I’ve tried other recipes and always come back to this one. I don’t bother with seasoning the meat with the dry rub anymore and just wisk everything together very well and mix with the beef. Definitely longer is better for marinating, go at least 18hrs and every few hours i mix all the beef and marinade by hand. I make it on a smoker so I don’t bother with the liquid smoke.
I’ve been following this recipe for years and is the BEST!
I left out the liquid smoke, and added a lot of crushed red pepper flakes directly to the marinade, but otherwise followed as instructed. My wife said it is the best jerky she has ever had. I used the single batch of marinade I made to make four 1lb batches of jerky. I would marinate a 1lb, then drain and strain the liquid, put the marinade in the fridge and put the meat in the dehydrator. Then next day I would take the same liquid and marinate another pound, and repeated this for 4 batches over four days. I then took the marinade and boiled it and then sealed it in a container and froze it. I will see if works again next time I want jerky. But all around this is a great recipe.
Good recipe. I like the idea of saving some spice mix to sprinkle on while drying, adds some texture. I made up a slicing rig by tacking pieces of 1/4 inch trim to a 6-inch board. You can add 3/8 inch pieces on the other side. Makes the slicing go fast and uniform.
IMHO this is the holy grail of jerky. I’ve made it a dozen times marinating it for 24-48 hours then air frying at 140F x 8 hours using round roast sliced thin after an hour in the freezer. The only mod I made was to reduce the liquid smoke from 5 tablespoons to 1 tablespoon because it tastes more natural and makes the other flavours pop
the only thing missing is the curing salt, other than that it is a good mix of spices.
This is one of the best recipes especially for venison all the flavors come together to amplify the flavor of wild game in an excellent way i’ve been using this recipe for years I use my wild game and give it to my friends and family and coworkers it never lasts and everybody is always begging for more even though it takes time and effort it’s a labor of love because you watch everyone enjoy the fruits of your labor I modify the recipe to fit my own taste but I use all the ingredients and pineapple juice is definitely the secret people can guess the flavors but they never get pineapple juice when loading your dehydrator when the rack is full then sprinkle onion powder garlic powder and small red pepper flakes on the raw meat when it dries it sticks to it I think it’s a better product Bon appétit
Improvised a bit since I had about 3 times as much meat: used 3 times the dried ingredients, but only twice the liquid and sugar. Submerged pretty well and first batch just came out of the dehydrator. tasty good recipe, will surely do it again.
This is my favorite beef jerky. I have made this many times. I have basically quit looking for another recipe. Sometimes I make it more spicy (more crushed red peppers and I add 1 tsp cayenne red pepper), sometimes no crushed red peppers for the rest of the family. (They don’t like it spicy) Both version are very good.
You MUST marinade at least 24 hours. I made a sample batch after 4 hours of marinading, and while it tasted pretty good it was not nearly as tender as when i did the rest after about 30 hours of marinading. The pineapple juice (i also added a bit of orange juice) definately aids in a better texture. Flavour wise, i do find the sweetness is more noticeable too, as compared to the sample batch. I used AAA bottom sirloin steak tails, and did it in my convection oven setting on dehydrate at 140.
This recipe is excellent. I purchased a new smoker and used it with this recipe, for the first time smoking jerky. The only thing I’ll add, is it made enough marinade for probably two pounds of meat. Seemed like a lot to discard, so next time I’ll do two pounds of jerky!
This recipe is awesome. I didn’t have pineapple juice so used peach fruit juice. I adjusted cooking time for my Air Fryer. Beef Jerky was sweet and Spicy Hot! I also used this recipe to make Black Peppered Beef Stir Fry! Use the marinade as sauce and add a little cornstarch at end to thicken. Add bell peppers and Brocoli, serve with rice or low mein. FANTASTIC!!
Everyone loves this jerky! I make it every year for my daughter’s boyfriend and it’s always a hit and my family asks me to make extra. I love the hint of balsamic in this which makes it truly delicious!
Adding Grippo’s seasoning while laying meat on dehydrator takes this to 6 stars!!
Love the flavor! I did make some small changes in prep and ingredients. I really like my jerky spicy. I used venison instead of beef as my meat. ? I substituted KC Masterpiece Caribbean Jerk marinade in place of the Teriyaki sauce. ? I used reduced-sodium soy sauce. ? I added 1/4 cup of Crystal hot sauce. ? I added 1/4 cup of Skinny Girl brand raspberry vinaigrette salad dressing. ? I added 1/4 cup Allegro brand Game Tame marinade ? I used a combination of ground red pepper and crushed red pepper flakes. ? I added two teaspoons of Sauers brand 7 pepper Grill seasoning. ? I omitted the pineapple juice but it wasn’t due to the fact that I did not want it. I did not have any in my pantry and I was too lazy to go to town. This is where the corn syrup base of the Caribbean Jerk marinade took the place of the missing pineapple juice. ? I did not reduce my brown sugar content in a heated mixture of the liquid ingredients. I simply mixed all the ingredients together in a blender and hit the pulse button about five times to thoroughly mix all the ingredients. ? I poured the marinade directly over the meat and refrigerated it overnight for about 12 hours. ? When it came to adding the meat to my dehydrator, once I filled a tray with the slices, I went back with another small dusting of the seven pepper Grill seasoning on the top of the jerky pieces. Very sweet and spicy! One of the best jerky recipes that I have made in a while.
The BEST jerky I’ve ever made! My family just can’t enough!
lees liquid smoke
This is a very good recipe, and have made it at least 6 times. Our friends love it and I find myself making several pounds at a time! You can save a lot of time and effort by purchasing “stir fry beef” strips in your local supermarket. These are strips with consistent length and thickness. Also, we like our jerky more bold and spicy, so we triple the 3-spice blend and also add to it cayenne powder and sea or smoked salt. Then we dredge the strips in this spice blend, store in a bag in the fridge for 8 hours, then add the marinade and let it soak overnight. This amplifies the flavor a lot. We’ve also added habanero sauce to the marinade with great results.
I took out the last 3 ingredients and smoked it over pecan for a few hours then finished in dehydrator. Awesome. Going to add fresh ginger next time. Good mix.