Low/no salt snack stick / salami recipe
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Guys, I'm looking for venison snack stick and salami recipes that do NOT include a ton of salt or sodium from meat cures. I have to be on a low sodium diet and I simply can't have all the salt that is included in most recipes. Frankly, I also hate excessive salt in food, I've had some snack sticks that are basically a giant salt bomb exploding in my mouth. Yuck.
I've tried a bunch of commercial seasoning mixes from Waltons and others and found out the hard way that these are LOADED with sodium. Walton's has one that a lot of people seem to like, the Willies seasoning. Turns out most of their snack stick seasonings are 60+% pure salt.
Also, a lot of recipes use a lot of salt cure which, of course, is just adding more sodium. I freeze my snack sticks so I don't believe I need all this "cure" as a preservative. Can I cut this down in most recipes?
Can folks share some seasoning recipes that aren't so dang salty?
Many thanks.
Lol, good luck with that! I'm serious when I say this. Cook your meat and enjoy it that way, because as you know, salt (sodium in its many forms) is the cure. A crazy idea might be to precook your burger mix, dry it, and perhaps add gelatin to stuff in your sausage skins. I know that seems crazy, but I'm not sure you'll be able to bind your meat any other way?
Like Pete said, it’s going to be difficult to find a low salt salt cure!!!
So questions here.
1. How much cure is really necessary (if any) provided I store the sausage in the freezer and then consume it within a few days of thawing.
I've asked several guys who seem really knowledgeable about sausage making and it seems like there are varying opinions of what cure even does or if/how much is necessary.
2. Sugar cure vs salt cure. I sugar cure just salt cure with some sugar in it? Or is this a lower salt option for cure?
If stored frozen then eaten soon after thawing no cure is necessary.
I have never tried snack sticks but I dont use the cure in any of my sausages I make.
If interested, here is a summer sausage recipe I my family loves. Maybe you could convert it over to snack sticks, and adjust cooking time for their smaller size. I photo’d the Tender Quick label, so you could see the salt/sodium amount.
Can’t figure out how to post 2 photos so Tender Quick label to follow.
Sorry for upside down photos, maybe somebody can correct for me.
I made a honey bbq snack stick last year, only used 1 tsp of cure to every 5 pounds of meat, had sticks smoked at a super market, every one liked them, if you want recipe, I can locate it and send it to you, no other sodium was in recipe, only reason for cure was to prevent spoilage during smoking stage, If you were going to cook sticks quicker, probably would not need cure. I'm on a low salt diet and used to make lots of sausage, can be challenging to make it still taste good without salt.
"Frankly, I also hate excessive salt in food, I've had some snack sticks that are basically a giant salt bomb exploding in my mouth. Yuck." That's a great reason for wanting low-salt recipes. For anyone avoiding salt for health reasons, you're probably making your food blander for no reason. It's not easy to sort out what's healthy and what's not, but it appears to the open-minded that the advice to avoid salt has been BS from the start. Obviously, don't take my word for it. Google "low salt diet hoax" and start reading. Doctors are not nutrition experts and they MUST parrot conventional wisdom whether they know better or not - or can get in big trouble. And conventional wisdom on diet advice takes decades to change. So naturally many, probably most, MDs will still be telling patients to avoid salt 20 years from now regardless of the evidence. You have to dig out the facts yourself.
IMO the nitrate and nitrite in Tenderquick are a slight concern, the propolene glycol a lesser concer, the sodium no concern at all. None worry me enough to quit using it. I wouldn't argue with someone who thinks nitrates & nitrites are perfectly safe or with someone who thinks they should be avoided at all costs. The evidence on salt seems pretty clear though since it's been studied so much and been used in such high amounts for centuries.