Pink Salt?


 
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Tim Rahto

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I found a recipe for making your own corned beef in a book, but the recipe calls for "pink salt". After running it through Google, I found it from an online vendor for a mere $4.89 a pound. Yikes!

Is substituting plain old kosher salt an acceptable substitution in this case? I am willing to sacrifice some pink coloring in exchange for economy.

Anyone ever done this?

-Tim
 
Pink salt is another term for Prague Powder #1 (aka sodium nitrite), a type of meat cure. You might be better off just trying to find Morton Tender Quick locally, and using it instead. Kosher salt is not an acceptable substitute. Maybe you found references to "Himalayan pink salt", which is not a meat curing agent. In any case, the curing agent is not pink (unless it's had dye added), and does not color the meat-- it's the chemical reaction to it that produces the color we associate with cured meats.
 
Thank you, Doug. I couldn't figure out why a corned beef recipe would require some exotic salt from half way around the globe!
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This makes MUCh more sense. I will give the corned beef recipe a try and let you know how it turns out.
 
Many curing salts are tinted pink to distinguish them from table salt. Curing salts should only be used as curing agents and not like table salt as they are dangerous in high doses. Prague Powder # 1, Insta-Cure, Modern Cure, DC Cure, DQ Cure are various names for the same type of pink salt, i.e., a sodium nitrite concentration of 6.25%.

Adjustments often need to be made to a recipe if using Tender Quick. If you want to go with the recipe as written you can purchase pink salt here (it's the DQ Curing Salt). It's quite cheap.
 
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