top of page
wood banner - recipe pages.png

Brisket Recipes

Kansas City Barbecue Beef Brisket

By: Just A Pinch Recipes

Brisket Ingredients:

  • 3-4 lbs brisket

  • 1/2 bottle of liquid smoke

  • 1/2 cup white vinegar

  • Water to cover the brisket

  • 2 tsp celery seed

  • 2 tsp of onion seed

​

BBQ Sauce Ingredients:

  • 1 1/4 cups ketchup

  • 3/4 cup chili sauce

  • 3/4 cup brown sugar

  • 3/4 cup red wine vinegar

  • 1/2 cup lemon juice, freshly squeezed

  • 3/4 cup water

  • 1/4 cup steak sauce

  • 1/4 cup yellow mustard

  • 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

  • 1 Tbsp soy sauce

  • 1 dash garlic salt

  • 1 dash Tobasco sauce

  • 1 tsp celery seed

  • 1 tsp black pepper

​

Directions for Beef Brisket:

Marinate brisket in a pan big enough to hold entire brisket, liquid smoke, vinegar, onion and celery seed. Mix well. Add enough water to cover half the brisket. 

 

Cover the pan with foil and place in the refrigerator for 24 hours. The following day, preheat oven to 275° F, remove the brisket from the refrigerator and drain the liquid. Place a baking rack inside a pan large enough to hold the brisket. Bake for 5 hours. Remove the brisket from the oven and trim off excess fat.

 

If the meat is very tender, shred the meat instead of slicing.

 

Directions for Barbecue Sauce:

Place all ingredients in a large saucepan and cook on stove top on medium heat for 30 minutes.

 

Finishing: 

Cut the beef into thin slices or shred and cover it with barbecue sauce. Top sandwiches with coleslaw and dill pickles.

 

Add potato chips, onion rings, or other choices. 

bbq brisket 1.JPG

Recipe & Photo sourced from JustAPinch.com

Corned Beef and Cabbage

Featured in The Essential Market Bulletin Cookbook

Ingredients:

  • 1 home-cured or store-bought corned beef brisket (preferably flat cut)

  • 1/2 cabbage, cut in 1-to-2-inch wedges

  • 3 large carrots, peeled, cut in 1-inch pieces

  • 2 medium-to-large sweet onions, peeled, cut in 2-inch pieces

  • 10-to-12 small red potatoes, cut in half

​

Directions:

In a large pot, place corned beef brisket and, if store bought, the pickling spice included in the package. Fill pot with enough water to cover by about half an inch. Bring water to a boil, then lower to simmer and partially cover with a lid. Cook for about 2 1/2 to 3 hours or until just fork tender. Add vegetables to the pot and continue to cook at a simmer until vegetables are tender, about 30 minutes. Remove corned beef brisket from the pot onto a cutting board. Remove any unwanted large portions of fat attached. Slice meat against the grain. To serve, place a few slices each of corned beef in shallow bowls. Place some of the vegetables in each bowl with a slotted spoon and add some of the cooking liquid. Serve as is or with mustard or horseradish as an accompaniment.

 

Serves about 6 people depending on the size of the brisket.

Home-Cured Corned Beef

 

Ingredients:

  • 1 - 4-6 lb brisket (preferably flat cut)

  • 1 gallon water

  • 2 cups Diamond Crystal Kosher salt or 1 1/2 cup Morton's Kosher salt

  • 3 Tbsp pickling spice

  • 5 tsp pink salt, also called Prague powder (pickling salt, not Himalayan pink salt)

  • 1/2 cup light brown sugar

  • 1 small cinnamon stick

 

Directions:

In a large pot, bring all ingredients to a boil, then immediately remove from heat. Let cool to room temperature, then refrigerate until well chilled. In a container large enough to submerge brisket, place brisket and enough brine to cover completely. Refrigerate 5-6 days or until meat turns pink. Remove from brine just before cooking.

corned beef - cropped.jpg

Oven Brisket Tips

By Katie Workman

Avoiding Tough Brisket

Don’t be tempted to turn up the heat to a higher temperature. Brisket is a tough cut of meat with a lot of collagen (connective tissues) and only low and slow cooking will allow the meat to become fall-apart tender. You can cook the brisket for longer at a lower temperature, but don’t go above 300° F or it will likely become tough. Also make sure the pan is well sealed during the cooking process to hold in the moisture. This is necessary both in the initial cooking time with no sauce, and the second part of the baking, once the sauce is added.

​

How Much Brisket Per Person?

A 5 lb brisket, once cooked, will shrink to about 3 1/2 lbs of meat, so don’t be surprised when it shrinks considerably. Plan for about 1/2 lb uncooked brisket per person; a 5 lb brisket should serve 10. However, if you have big eaters, round up! And if you want leftovers (and why wouldn’t you) round up! If you are cooking a 7 or 8 lb brisket, just add another 30 minutes to the initial cooking time, and another 30 minutes to the cooking time once you add the sauce (don’t forget to reseal that pan).

 

You absolutely need to let the brisket rest for at least 20 minutes before slicing it. This will allow the juices in the meat, which will have worked their way to the surface during the cooking process, to redistribute themselves throughout the meat. The result: tender, juice slices of flavorful brisket. It will still stay warm, tented with foil while it rests, but the most important thing is that the juices won’t run out onto the cutting board, leaving you with slices of grayish, dry meat.

 

Cutting Brisket Against the Grain

When you read a recipe and it tells you to cut a piece of meat against or across the grain, it means you should slice the meat crosswise, across the fibers of the meat. Cut of beef or other meat like brisket which are from a much-used muscle of the cow develop strong fibers, which will soften with cooking, but remain intact. Cutting the slices of meat perpendicular to the fibers means that each slice will have only short bits of fiber going crosswise, and the meat will feel easier to chew and more tender. Otherwise long strands of fibers will cause the meat to feel chewy and even tough in your mouth.

Oven Baked Beef Brisket

Author: Katie Workman

​

Prep Time: 25 mins    

Cook Time: 5 hrs 30 mins  

Total Time: 5 hrs 55 mins  

Servings: 10 People 

Ingredients:

  • Brisket - about 5 lbs 

 

For the Rub:

  • 2 Tbsp brown sugar

  • 2 Tbsp paprika smoked if possible

  • 2 tsp dry mustard

  • 2 tsp garlic powder

  • 2 tsp onion powder

  • 2 tsp salt

  • ½ tsp cumin

  • ½ tsp dried basil

  • ½ tsp dried thyme

  • ¼ tsp cayenne pepper

For the Sauce:

  • 1 Tbsp vegetable or canola oil

  • 1 cup chopped onion

  • ¼ cup chopped celery

  • ¼ cup chopped green bell pepper

  • 2 Tbsp minced garlic

  • â…› tsp cayenne pepper or to taste

  • 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar

  • 3 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

  • ½ cup ketchup

  • 3 cups beef broth

  • 2 bay leaves

Directions:

  1. If the brisket has a thick layer of fat, trim it down to ¼ inch. Mix together rub ingredients. Rub all over brisket, wrap it in plastic wrap or place in a sealable container and refrigerate overnight, or for at least 8 hours.

  2. Preheat the oven to 300° F. Place the brisket in a roasting pan and cover the baking pan with a lid, or seal it well with foil. Bake for 3 hours.

  3. Meanwhile, heat the oil in a small pot over medium heat. Add the onion, celery, bell pepper and garlic and sauté for 3 minutes until the vegetables start to soften. Add the cayenne, vinegar, ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, vinegar, broth and bay leaves. Bring to a simmer and simmer for 10 minutes until it reduces slightly. Remove from the heat.

  4. Take the brisket from the oven, turn it over, and pour the half of the sauce into the pan over the brisket, recover the pan (if using foil, cover the pan tightly, using towels to protect your hands from the hot pan). Reserve the rest of the sauce in the pot. Continue cooking in the oven for another 2 hours or so, or until the meat is just about fork tender. Remove the foil and continue baking for another 30 minutes until the outside of the brisket has browned up and gotten a bit crusty.

  5. Remove from the oven, take the brisket out of the pan, and let it sit on a cutting board tented with foil (with a little moat to catch the juices!) for 20 minutes before slicing across the grain. If there is any sauce left in the pan, skim off the fat and add it to the remaining sauce in the pot, and heat it again before serving the brisket with the additional sauce for people to drizzle over their meat if they like.

Oven Baked Beef Brisket

Author: Katie Workman

​

Prep Time: 25 mins

Cook Time: 5 hrs 30 mins  

Total Time: 5 hrs 55 mins  

Servings: 10 People 

Ingredients:

  • 1 beef brisket (4-5 lbs) 

  • 2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

  • 2 Tbsp soy sauce

  • 1 Tbsp onion salt

  • 1 Tbsp liquid smoke

  • 2 tsp salt

  • 2 tsp pepper

  • Dash hot pepper sauce

Sauce:

  • 1/2 cup ketchup

  • 3 Tbsp brown sugar

  • 1 Tbsp lemon juice

  • 1 Tbsp soy sauce

  • 1 tsp ground mustard

  • 3 drops hot pepper sauce

  • Dash ground nutmeg

Directions:

  1. Place brisket, fat side down, in a 13x9 inch baking dish. In a small bowl, mix Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, onion salt, liquid smoke, salt, pepper and hot pepper sauce; pour over brisket. Turn brisket fat side up; refrigerate, covered, overnight.

  2. Remove brisket from refrigerator. Preheat oven to 300° F. Bake, covered, 4 hours. In a small bowl, combine sauce ingredients. Spread over brisket. Bake, uncovered, 15-30 minutes longer or until tender. Cut diagonally across the grain into thin slices.

bottom of page