My Biltong Is Too Salty: Here’s How To Fix It

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You have lovingly marinated your meat for hours, and you have waited those long days for it to dry. Now it’s time to try the long-awaited biltong. Oh no, it’s too salty! Are the effort and meat wasted? Can you fix it?

You can fix over-salted biltong by soaking it in water. Soaking works by rehydrating the meat and removing the excess salt. You will need to immerse the biltong until the water changes colour (this can take up to 12 hours).

Once the soaking is complete, you can marinate the meat again for a couple of hours (don’t forget to reduce the salt!). Now you can hang it to dry for another 12 hours. The result will be drier than before but should be less salty and still taste great.

There are several reasons your biltong may have ended up too salty. The many possibilities are why biltong-making involves a lot of trial and error. Some factors causing biltong to taste over-salted can be that you accidentally added too much salt. Another common reason is you used the wrong salt (Using table salt instead of coarse rock salt).

Over-salting is one of the most common mistakes people make when making biltong (even long-time makers still do it). So as you can imagine, people have invented many ways to utilise salty biltong. Let’s discuss all the possibilities for fixing and making use of your over-salted biltong.

Over Salted Biltong

The first time I made biltong, I was so excited as I waited patiently for the drying to finish and finally tried my homemade biltong. Much to my disappointment, the biltong was so salty it was inedible! Five days of waiting and watching, all the preparation and money, to have biltong no one would eat!

Fortunately, there is a way to save your biltong, and it’s not too complicated. But you will need to start the process again, which is annoying but worth not wasting good meat.

  • To remove the excessive saltiness from your biltong, it needs to soak in water until the water changes colour. Place the biltong in a bowl and fill it with water. The bowl must be big enough to hold the biltong and submerge it fully.
  • Make sure to stir the biltong around now and then. After a few hours or more, drain the water and dry the meat with a paper towel.
  • At this point, you can marinate the meat again, but with less salt this time! You will only need to marinate for a couple of hours before hanging it up to dry. Leave the meat to re-dry for another 12 hours.
  • Once the meat has re-dried, you will have some delicious biltong that is not too salty and ready to be eaten.

Interestingly, this process was used to preserve meat before refrigerators arrived. Early settlers in South Africa would deliberately over-salt their meat to preserve it for long periods. They would then soak it in water to rehydrate it and remove the salt when they wanted to use it.

Biltong soaking

What Went Wrong?

You are here, so you didn’t deliberately over-salt your biltong…”So what possibly went wrong?” There are several possible reasons your biltong is overly salty.

  • The first could be that you used a recipe requiring more salt than what suits your taste. Biltong making is highly experimental, as we all have different tastes and preferences. It will take time and testing to discover just the right amount of salt for your taste.
  • Another common reason is that you used table salt instead of coarse rock salt. Recipes use coarse rock salt because it doesn’t stick to the meat like table salt. Table salt is superfine, which means it penetrates the meat and works its way in very intensely (It pays to follow the details of a recipe).
  • Another possibility could be the meat was marinated too long for your taste preference. The longer you marinate meat, the stronger the taste and saltiness. If you don’t like salty food or strong tastes, we recommend you marinate for no more than 4 hours. If you do a long marination time, it’s good to wash off the marinade before hanging it to dry. Here is an article on the optimal time to marinate biltong.

Ways To Utilise Salty Biltong

If you’re not interested in soaking and restarting the biltong process again, you’re maybe wondering…What can I do with my salty biltong? Fortunately, there is no reason to throw away your efforts or money. You can still use biltong in many delicious ways. You could even invent some! Here are a few ideas for utilising biltong which is easy and flavorful.

Make A Tasty Seasoning

  • A common use for salty biltong is to use it as a seasoning. This is an amazing way to add delicious biltong flavour to any dish. To make the seasoning (Also known as biltong powder) you need to dry the biltong until there’s no moisture. Next, you can grate, finely shred or blend the biltong to become a powder. Your seasoning is complete! You can now sprinkle it into any meal as a natural flavour enhancer. You can sprinkle it on soup, add it to your omelette, garnish a pizza, or even have it with butter on toast.

Mix Into Dishes

  • You can also add salty biltong into dishes the same way you might add bacon. The salt from the biltong will make its way through while also bringing that wonderful flavour of biltong. A good way to do this is to soak the biltong before frying it with onions and using it in a stir-fry or casserole. You can also add biltong as the salt component to dishes such as soup and bolognese.

Make A Snack Mix

  • A great way to use salty biltong is to add it to a snack mix that you can eat while hiking, camping or watching Netflix. A fantastic mix of ingredients includes; Your salty biltong cut into fingernail-size pieces, roasted peanuts, sultanas or dates cut into small pieces and chocolate chips. Put all the ingredients in a bag and shake it around, letting the salty biltong work through the other components. This mix is salty and sweet. The sweetness counteracts the salt on the biltong, and the salt works with the peanuts.

So now, if you ever end up with very salty biltong, you know there is always hope! Luckily, there are many options for getting the best out of a bad situation.

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