re: Making Tasso

Sodium nitrite is the curing agent. It’s a white powder. It only takes a small amount of nitrite to cure. If you’re making a brine at home, you’d be looking at maybe 1 gram of nitrite.

Because it only takes a small amount, they mix it with salt and use salt as a carrier and call it: cure, pink salt, Prague, instacure, etc. these mixes are about 94% salt.

They do this because it’s easier to measure 1 cup of pink salt vs 1 gram of sodium nitrite. They also do this because if you are supposed to use 1 cup, and you end up using 20 cups, you should realize you messed up and it will be super salty. And who’s gonna really use that much extra? It forces you to use an unbelievable amount of pink salt to add a high amount of nitrite. Therefore, it prevents you from making “a toxic product”. To make a toxic product, you need A TON of pink salt. So don’t be afraid to use pink salt, you’re not gonna kill yourself if you accidentally have a little extra.

Nitrite is white and salt is white. They add the pink color so you know it’s cure and so you don’t mistake it as salt. They also have pink Himalayan salt in the stores. This is just a colored salt and is NOT pink salt.

You’ll find cure #1 and cure #2. Cure #2 has sodium nitrate in the mix. Notice I said nitrate and not nitrite. Nitrate has an extra oxygen molecule (NaNO3). Nitrite is NaNO2.

Cure #2 is used for dried meats like salami. Cure #1 is your everyday normal cure.