How To Reheat Brisket The Right Way – Complete Guide
There are variety of ways that a person can go about preparing brisket. Interestingly, the word "brisket" is ultimately derived from the Old Norse word for cartilage, likely alluding to where the cut is found on cattle.
Often, the meat will be basted during the cooking process. Because this particular cut of meat is on the tougher side, the cap of fatty tissue adjacent to the meat is left attached. This allows the fat to provide flavor and keep the meat tender and juicy.
Smoking is among the more common methods to cook brisket in the United States and this is often done in concert with rubbing a mixture of spices and seasonings into the meat, imparting further flavor to each bite and serving as a fine example of barbecue brisket.
Brisket also incurs a bit of logistics because it offers something tasty for everyone and large crowds demand special equipment. When looking to prepare brisket for large groups, it helps to have access to a wood-burning smoker. If you have a smoker, do some basic research and learn just how much meat you can safely smoke within it.
Chances are high that you will somehow wind up with leftover brisket after a cookout; properly working with those leftovers is what the rest of this article is going to help you figure out.
A Step By Step Guide On to How to Reheat Brisket Properly
After you have fully cooked your brisket, given it time to cool off and served your company, chances are likely that you may still have some brisket that you would rather not throw out. Before you can reheat your brisket, you need to package it the right way.
How To Reheat Brisket
Equipment
Ingredients
- Beef Brisket
Instructions
- Drain the juice from the brisket.
- Feel free to use a fat separator so you only get the au jus and none of the fat.
- Get a large size food service pan and transfer the remaining brisket and all of its au jus to the pan.
- Place the brisket and its succulent au jus into storage.
- While you will be find by just keeping it in your fridge, any brisket that remains after 3 days should be frozen.
- When you go to serve the brisket, the approach varies by whether or not you froze it or simply stored it in the fridge.
- If you choose to freeze the brisket, you should first allow it to thaw out in the fridge for at least two days before you think about serving the leftovers.
- To reheat the brisket, cook it until it reaches an internal temperature of 140°F.
- This is the proper temperature by which brisket should be served.
- Open up the bag, cover the pan with aluminum foil and place it within an oven that has been set to 325°F.
- This should take roughly an hour before will have delicious revived brisket.
- You can also use a smoker or grill, in lieu of an oven, but smoker temperature will likely mean that the brisket will need more than an hour's time to reach 140°F.
- Once the brisket hits 140°F, extract it from the oven, carve up the meat and serve it as you need.
Nutrition
The Sous Vide Technique.
There is another alternative to reheating brisket that does not call for direct heat: sous vide. If you happen to have a sous vide, also known as an immersion cooker, you will have a surefire way to ensure that your brisket is properly reheated to the perfect temperature with no loss in moisture.
Simply bring the sous vide's water temperature to anywhere between 110°F-175°F, bag up your brisket, immerse it into the water and follow the following charts to figure out how long a wait you will have.
Sliced Brisket
Whole Brisket
The Microwave Technique.
Ah, the surefire way to reheat brisket and leave it a dry mess. The microwave is only mentioned here to affirm and reiterate that it is a horrible way to go about reheating brisket. Because microwaves heat food up by evaporating moisture into steam, there is a great deal of challenge in gleaning a tender serving of reheated brisket via microwave.
If you absolutely have no other means by which to reheat your brisket, you should take the following steps.
Reduce the microwave's power to 20%.
A Few Example Uses for Reheated BBQ Brisket.
Sandwiches.
It may sound uninspired, but a brisket sandwich is far from an underwhelming meal. Whether you are on the last helpings of your brisket or you want to have it by itself, there is nothing wrong with heating brisket up for the sake of a sandwich or two for your lunch.
While there are few wrong ways to make a brisket sandwich, I recommend using a type of bread with some strength to it, like potato bread or sourdough. Then pair it with whatever condiments you like; personally, I am quite fond of spicy mustard, horseradish and a few slices of cheddar and Swiss.
Alternately, you might want to pour some of your au jus into a small bowl or a ramekin and use the brisket as the basis for a French dip. If you plan on eating your brisket sandwiches this way, you will want to use bread that has some resiliency; slightly old bread, toasting your roll or something like a baguette are all excellent choices.
With Sides.
There is nothing stopping you from serving your reheated brisket with the same sides you might offer during the initial its serving. Classic side dishes to serve with brisket include baked beans, mashed potatoes, coleslaw and rolls. If the beans seem a bit tepid of a meal suggestion, you might consider drizzling a bit of the brisket's au jus over them.
Quesadillas or Tacos.
Much like when using brisket for filling a sandwich, this meat works quite well with most Tex-Mex and Mexican dishes.
Stroganoff.
Here is one proper recipe that incorporates brisket.
Ingredients.
Steps.
In Conclusion.
Brisket is a delicious type of meat that tends to leave cooks with leftovers. Knowing how to manage those leftovers and preserve their moist tenderness is what separates the beginners from the people who know what they are doing; the fact that you have made it this far into this article is more than enough to qualify you in the latter category.
Having read this guide, you not only know the basics of brisket, but you know how best to go about reheating brisket in order to keep it around until it all winds up in everyone's stomachs, instead of the trash can-for having dried out into something closer to jerky.
