Dried beef, mutton and game

Dried beef, mutton and game (dried meat, air-dried beef) are lean muscles of cattle, sheep, reindeer or other game, salted and air-dried until firm, sometimes with spices, smoke or a spice coating. The family includes bresaola (Italy), cecina de León (Spain), pastırma (Türkiye), jerky (USA), Lapland dried reindeer and Norwegian fenalår. There is little fat, so drying takes away 30–60 % of the weight.

In Finnish Lapland reindeer meat is dried in the open air from February to April for 3–6 weeks, losing 40–60 % of its fresh weight. The result is Lapin Poron kuivaliha PDO: pieces 1–5 cm thick, dark red to black, hard outside and softer inside, with a strong reindeer aroma.

Each has its own raw material. Bresaola della Valtellina uses five thigh muscles of cattle aged 18 months to 4 years, Cecina de León five hind-quarter muscles of adult cattle, Fenalår fra Norge a whole leg of Norwegian-born lamb or mutton. Italy's 2025 decree also allows plain «bresaola» from horse or deer.

The timing differs too. Bresaola is salted for 10–15 days and aged 4–8 weeks in all at 12–18 °C. Cecina is salted up to 0.4 days per kilo, left to «settle» for at least 30 days, optionally smoked for up to 16 days and dried — over 7 months in total. Kayseri Pastırması spends 2–4 days in nitrite salt, is pressed twice and coated with çemen, a paste of fenugreek, garlic and spices. Fenalår dries for 3–9 months until it has lost at least 30–35 % of its weight.

The history runs deep. 15th-century writings describe salting beef thighs in Valtellina, the cecina specification cites the early 17th-century novel La pícara Justina, and Kayseri Pastırması has held a Turkish origin mark since 25 June 2002. Italians, Spaniards, Turks and Norwegians have kept meat this way for centuries.

Side by side they are very different. Bresaola is unsmoked and moist — up to 63 % water. Cecina is often smoked, harder, with a cherry-red cut. Pastırma is brown outside from the çemen and red inside, with cumin in front. Americans make jerky in strips and dry it to a water activity of 0.85 or lower, following the USDA FSIS model. Fenalår is evenly reddish, mildly salty, with golden fat.

On the shelf the protected names are easy to find by status: «Bresaola della Valtellina» with «IGP», «Cecina de León» with the PGI symbol, Lapin Poron kuivaliha a PDO since 2010, Fenalår fra Norge a PGI since 2017. Jerky has no protected name.

All of them are sliced thin: fenalår at 0.6–1.2 mm, bresaola at 0.6–0.8 mm. In Türkiye pastırma keeps 3–4 months at 0–4 °C. And do not squeeze lemon over bresaola: the consortium warns that the juice oxidises the meat and makes it look cooked.

Why this matters to you: lean dried meat only looks alike. According to Ciqual 2025, 100 g of bresaola has 172 kcal, 32.8 g protein and 4.3 g fat, but smoke, ageing time and the animal change the taste completely. Related sections: Cured meats & charcuterie and Curing of meat.