Montreal Smoked Meat Recipe (2024)

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Smoked Beef

Montreal's answer to pastrami.

Joshua Bousel

Joshua Bousel is a Serious Eats old-timer, having started sharing his passion for grilling and barbecue recipes on the site back in 2008. He continues to develop grilling and barbecue recipes on his own site, The Meatwave, out of his home base of Durham, North Carolina.

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Updated September 06, 2023

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Why It Works

Steaming the meat after smoking produces a more tender, smoother textured smoked meat that is equally delicious cold or reheated the next day.
The diverse spice blend of a Montreal rub creates a more nuanced flavor that lets the meat stand out, while still providing a robust taste overall.

Ever since making my first pastrami, I've wanted to correct a rather large omission in my process—the pastrami was never steamed. To finally fix this, I got another brisket to smoke, but instead of remaking pastrami, I went the Montreal smoked meat route instead.

Montreal smoked meat is, more or less, Montreal's answer to pastrami. The process can be almost identical, but there are two main differences. First, the seasoning—smoked meat rubs can vary while pastrami is primarily a mix of black pepper, coriander, and garlic. Second is the cut of meat—smoked meat is often made with the whole brisket, letting customers choose between the fatty deckle or the more lean flat, while pastrami is usually just the brisket flat or beef plate.

As with pastrami, the smoked meat starts with a dry cure to let the salt and nitrites work their magic in the fridge for five days. Then the brisket gets soaked to remove some saltiness and is coated with my interpretation of a Montreal rub, then placed in the smoker until it hit 165°F.

When making pastrami, at this point, I took it out, let it rest, then sliced the meat and served. Hot off the grill, it was excellent but the next day, reheated, it was on the dry side. So this time for the Montreal version, I took an additional step of steaming the brisket until it jumped another 15 degrees, ending the cook at 180°F.

This made a world of difference. The texture of the meat was much smoother after gently bringing it to a higher temperature with steam. It also solved the leftover problems—both cold and reheated, the smoked meat was equally delicious.

The flavor was also better, its diverse spice rub creating a more nuanced flavor that let the meat stand out, while still providing a robust taste overall. Fixing a problem has never been so delicious

February 2012

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