This Mexican Heat Beef Jerky is made with spicy Serrano peppers and red pepper flakes to light your lips on fire and satisfy that spice craving.
I am a big fan of Serrano peppers, mainly eating them in picante and pico de gallo sauces here in South Texas. They are from Mexico and their spice is a little hotter than a jalapeno. What I like the most about them is that they are spicy, but pack a great taste as well. I love eating spicy jerky, but it has to taste good too!
I sliced some beef eye of round against the grain making this jerky have an easier chew. The Serrano peppers were diced, seeds left in, then added to the marinade to make sure this jerky has a strong spicy flavor. Feel free to adjust the amount of peppers to suit your spice preference.
I decided to use my Excalibur Dehydrator when drying this jerky. The dehydrator is my favorite way of drying jerky and the Excalibur is my favorite dehydrator. This recipe will turn out well using other drying methods, you can see more information on drying on the jerky making methods page.
After dehydrating for 5 hours, these bad boys were ready to be eaten. They turned out great! It had the perfect amount of spice for my liking and a great chew. So get some beef and give this Mexican heat beef jerky a try!
For more in depth directions on how to dry your beef jerky, visit my page Jerky Making Methods
- 1lb beef eye of round
- 2 tbsp worcestershire sauce
- ½ tsp garlic powder
- 1 tbsp brown sugar
- ½ tsp smoked paprika
- 2 tsp red pepper flakes
- 3 Serrano peppers diced (seeds left in)
- ¼ cup red wine vinegar
- Trim all visible fat from the beef and place in freezer for an hour or two to partially freeze.
- While the meat is in the freezer, combine the worcestershire sauce, garlic powder, brown sugar, smoked paprika, red pepper flakes, diced Serrano peppers, and red wine vinegar in a bowl or ziplock bag and mix well.
- Remove the meat from the freezer and slice ¼" strips against the grain. Cut with the grain for more chew.
- Add sliced beef to the mixture in a ziplock bag or bowl and marinate for 8-24 hours in the refrigerator.
- After the meat has finished marinating, remove from refrigerator and strain excess marinade and pat dry the beef strips with paper towels
- Dry with your favorite jerky making method. I used my dehydrator and dried for 5 hours at 160 degrees.
- The jerky is finished when it bends and cracks, but does not break in half.
For more in depth directions on how to dry your beef jerky, visit my page Jerky Making Methods
I am just getting into the jerky making process I am smoking it in my Rec Tec pellet grill, I also purchased a LEM jerky gun upon your recommendations. I do like to experiment with the spicy recipes. How would you recommend incorporating this recipe or others like this that include jalapeños/peppers into the ground beef jerky process? In your ground beef post you suggested that with the marinates you might need to double up the dry rubs. Has this been a pretty consistent finding? Thank you.
I find that doubling up on the spices does help ground beef jerky have the right amount of flavor. When it comes to peppers, I would keep the pepper amount the same. When making whole meat jerky you lose a lot of the sliced peppers when straining the meat, but with ground beef jerky, every pepper piece will be in the jerky. Have fun with it and experiment; that’s the best part of making homemade jerky!
How long will this jerky keep for? I am going to vacuum pack it and send it to a couple of friends that are deployed.
It depends on how you store it and how you make it. Check out my How Long Does Beef Jerky Last page for more information. This would be a great package to get while deployed!
I tried this recipe yesterday and my jerky had absolutely no flavor. Any thoughts about what happened? I followed the recipe to a tee and it ended up marinating 30+ hours as I was dehydrating the rig hand jerky, which turned out great.
My wife and I are huge Pluckers fans and routinely get Fire in the Hole wings so, being a fellow Austinite, you can understand our love for hot and spicy anything.
I am not sure why it would have no flavor at all…. I am the first to admit that even though I love spicy stuff, I can not handle REAL spicy stuff; but this does have a nice kick with the peppers and red pepper flakes. I haven’t made this recipe in a while, I will try to make this recipe again and see if it turns out as good as I remember or if it needs a little tweaking. Glad you like the Rig Hand Jerky, that’s a great one!