The Easy Trick To Slice Your Own Deli-Style Meats At Home

When it comes to convenience and food, America gets a gold star. Practically everything you could ever eat comes in a pre-made or pre-grown state. While this is great, there are those who prefer to grow their own produce and make their own foods. This is usually a decision based on the desire to consume fewer additives, preservatives, or artificial flavors. Whether it's bread, yogurt, pasta, or ice cream, making your own food has never been more popular or easier.

But when it comes to deli meat, even the DIY crowd tends to purchase it from the store. It's sliced for you and you get exactly the amount you want. Even if the thought of making your own deli meat has crossed your mind you may have talked yourself out of it, thinking you need a very large and very expensive professional meat slicer to make it happen. It turns out, you really don't. All you need is a mandoline, which can get the job done with ease. 

It might be tucked in the back of your highest cupboard hidden away with all the other gadgets you don't normally use, but your mandoline was made to slice. You've probably used it for fruits and vegetables which is what it is basically intended for, but it will also create thin and even slices of cooked meat, just like what you bring home from the deli counter. Whether it's a roasted turkey breast, an eye of round beef roast, a chunk of ham, or a pepperoni stick, you can slice your own with this gadget. The key is par-freezing the meat so that it remains firm while you're slicing. 

To do this, put your cooked meat in the freezer for about two hours. This is long enough to firm it up without freezing it rock-solid. If you try to run a room-temperature piece of meat through the mandoline, it won't cut smoothly and will likely get stuck in the blade, creating uneven slices of meat and potentially sliced fingers. A mandoline is also only so wide, so your meat chunks will need to fit within the parameters. The result should be beautifully thin, even slices of meat that taste better than anything you get at the deli because you've seasoned and cooked the meat yourself.