Homemade Pepperoni

[RG 2.0]

I've never made homemade pepperoni before but a fella on another forum I used to frequent made it and it looked good so I thought I'd give it a whirl. In the recipe, it calls for the use of liquid smoke. My thoughts are why use liquid smoke when I can get REAL smoke? So I stuck it on the Traeger on smoke mode for 3 hours. I then brought it inside and finished it the the oven.

Here's what it looked like, pics are blurry but you get the idea.

I will say that I think it needs improving. It somewhat has a pepperoni taste but more akin to summer sausage, especially in texture. The recipe I used was Tammy's Spicy Pepperoni

I will take out a pack or 2 to make pizzas tomorrow so I think that it'll at least be edible. I also made some homemade Italian sausage to go on it. I think I'll pull a pack of homemade maple bacon out of the fridge while I am at it!

If anyone has a pepperoni recipe that they'd like to share, I'd love to see it!

 

[NDKoze]

I am not an expert and have never made it. But, it seems to me that Pepperoni is a lot dryer than summer sausage and could benefit from a similar treatment to jerky with a jerky dryer and a long time in the smoker. I am not sure how you would accomplish that in your Traeger though.

I could be wrong. This is just a wild guess.

Regardless, those links are a beautiful dark red and look awesome!

 

[RG 2.0]

It's not a true pepperoni in the traditional sense, that's for sure. It's just something I had seen done by others so I took a shot at it. The Traeger is what I use to smoke bacon so I figured it'd work well for this. The cook was finished in my oven. Total cook time was supposed to be for 8 hours at 200°, I let it go 3 on the smoker with temps ranging from 150° to 180° and then 4.5 more or so in a 200° oven. That long cook time is what gives it the dense, dry texture found in pepperoni.

I will make some more at some point. I've been THIS close to buying the James Dryer since I first bought the #3. Maybe that would be the ticket to making true pepperoni.