How to start adding organ meat into your family meals

Organ meats like liver, heart and even tongue are very nutrient dense and used to be a standard part of the American diet.

After World War Two many families had 2 incomes, and a higher overall income led to more money to spend on cuts of meat so organs meats slowly began to be looked down upon as cheap lesser cuts.

I think anyone you asks has another opinion on how modern meat is on grocery store shelves. We are lucky to have family raise some meat for us and local butchers that connect straight to farmers so we know who is taking care of the animals while they are alive and exactly what they are eating.

We got a quarter beef this year and I was so excited to get a shot at adding more organ meats into our diet. I have been really focusing on nutrient density in our meals. You usually have to ask to include them, but in our experience they were excited to get rid of it!

Our culture loves to push, push, push supplements. I see people post videos all of the time of the 10 pills they take in the morning and although they may be “natural” that is not a normal way to receive those nutrients so naturally it is harder for your body to process and use.

Many foods have other complimentary nutrients that aid in absorption and digestion of vitamins and minerals so food sources are your best bet for wholesome nutrition.

So the problem then becomes the source. Soil quality highly impacts nutrients in crops, so focusing on quality becomes even more important. 

Organ meats from quality sources animals are rich in B-vitamins, such as vitamin B12 and folate and in minerals, including iron, magnesium, selenium and zinc. 

They also contain fat-soluble vitamins like vitamins A, D, E and K.

Overall my goal this year has been to introduce these different flavors into my toddlers diets so they are more normal. 

For the past few months we have been experimenting with cooking methods. The easiest by far has been to keep frozen beef liver in the freezer and grate some in every time I make ground beef, venison or pork sausage. We never notice a flavor change at all. It helps that you usually season ground meat anyways!

Taste wise the next best in our opinion has beef heart. We have tried both venison heart and beef heart. Beef heart is usually between 2-3 lbs I used it in multiple meals for a week!

If you have the pleasure to remove the arteries, hard fat, veins and connective tissue. It is an amazing visual biology experience for kids!

We sliced the ventricles and grilled them like steak. I then made fajitas, Philly cheese steak sandwiches and then eggs and heart throughout the week (like seriously a ton of meat!) it heated up again pretty well. Heart does not really have a rough flavor like liver, but it does get chewier when you recook it.

If you are worried about gamey flavor is wild game or the metallic flavor with liver you can soak meat in milk for at least an hour or two before cooking, this is pretty magical with getting the harsh flavor out of liver, but if you are to reheat it, it does return very harshly.

Liver we tried the classic liver and onions. After soaking the liver i patted it dry, dipped it in a mixture of flour and season salt and pan fried it on a very hot preheated cast iron. Liver and heart both have a different texture than normal cuts of beef they are soft to bite through, but are more solid than stringy like some other cuts.

The most intimidating is definitely beef tongue. It comes out of the packaging looking like it could lick you right on the face.

Tongue is very common in authentic street tacos. When I was looking into getting started with organ meats it was the most recommended to start with.

And although it looks very intimidating, after slow cooking the outer layer peels off revealing a tender muscle that cuts like butter. It is a lot less rubbery than heart or beef and is easily seasoned. It also heated up rather well, but would dry out a bit.

Overall we have had a great experience with organ meat so far. I am excited to try new recipes and would love to hear if you have any ideas or family recipes!