Insta Cure™ #1 Pink Curing Salt – Prague Powder #1, No Red Dye

Insta Cure™ #1 is pink curing salt — also sold as Prague Powder #1, Cure #1, or pink cure — made with 6.25% sodium nitrite and colored with annatto instead of synthetic red dye.

Use it for any meat that will be cooked, brined, smoked, or canned: sausage of all kinds, poultry, fish, ham, bacon, luncheon meats, corned beef, and more. As a rule of thumb, 1 teaspoon cures 5 lbs of ground meat.

Curing with sodium nitrite protects against Clostridium botulinum, the bacterium behind botulism, during the long cooking times, low temperatures, and limited oxygen that smoked and dry-cured sausage require. It also fixes the cured flavor most people recognize as "properly made," and stabilizes the reddish-pink color in the finished product by reacting with the meat's myoglobin.

Made without synthetic dyes. We worked with our suppliers to replace the red colorant in the original formula with annatto, a natural spice-derived colorant. The cure strength and usage rates are unchanged.

Insta Cure #1 is not interchangeable with Insta Cure #2. Cure #1 contains sodium nitrite only and is for products that will be cooked, smoked, or brined and eaten within weeks. Insta Cure #2 also contains sodium nitrate, which breaks down slowly over months, and is for dry-cured salami and whole muscles aged without cooking. Using the wrong one is the most common mistake in home curing.

Insta Cure #1 Usage

General rule of thumb: for quick, easy calculating with sausage, 1 teaspoon per 5 lbs of ground meat is fine.

See the table below for maximum usage (156 ppm) and the TSM-recommended 130 ppm for adding Prague Powder #1 directly to ground meat for sausage intended for smoking or dry curing (2–4 week recipes):

* 156 ppm is the maximum allowable ingoing nitrite into comminuted (ground) meat according to the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), a division of the USDA.

Brine and Immersion Curing (Poultry, Ham, Bacon)

Immersion only. For a basic bacon or ham brine that will not be used to pump (usually at 10–12%) into the meat prior to wet cure brining, mix thoroughly:

• 1 gallon water
• 4 oz. Insta Cure #1
• 1 lb. to 1.25 lbs. salt (pickling or kosher, non-iodized)
• 8–12 oz. white sugar (medium dark brown sugar for bacon)

With the ingredients thoroughly dispersed into the brine solution in a food-grade container, cover all whole-muscle pieces completely with brine and refrigerate:

Chicken/turkey for 1–2 days
Pork loin for 4–7 days
Small ham (5–8 lbs) for 7–10 days
Large ham (10–15 lbs) for 14–21 days

General rule of thumb: about 2 days of immersion wet curing per 1 inch of meat thickness.

Stitch-Pumping 10% and Brining

For a basic bacon or ham brine that will be used to pump 10% into the meat prior to wet cure brining, mix thoroughly:

• 1 gallon water
• 3 oz. Insta Cure #1
• 1 lb. to 1.25 lbs. salt (pickling or kosher, non-iodized)
• 8–12 oz. white sugar (medium dark brown sugar for bacon)

With the ingredients thoroughly dispersed into the brine solution in a food-grade container, cover all whole-muscle pieces completely with brine and refrigerate:

Chicken/turkey for 12 hours to 1 day
Pork loin for 2–4 days
Small ham (5–8 lbs) for 4–6 days
Large ham (10–15 lbs) for 7–10 days

For corned beef specifically, our guide to making corned beef at home walks through the full brining schedule.

Using a meat pump shortens brining time by about half, and you will use less cure and get more consistent results. Less brining time means less chance of failure — invest in a meat pump with perforated needles if you plan to brine bacon, hams, and especially poultry. You'll find the rest of our curing ingredients here, including salt, sugar cure, and binders.