Authentic Flint Coney Sauce in Abbott's Style
While Flint Coney Sauce is a relatively simple thing, if you haven’t dealt with beef heart in the past, the sauce can be a tad overwhelming to make. (As to the recipe with ground hot dogs, tomato paste, and mustard, that’s not the real recipe, regardless of who told you it was.) Back in 2019, I took the time to create an authentic “copycat” recipe for the Abbott’s premade sauce that’s being discontinued at the end of 2025. Even though I’ve created this recipe and made it a few times when we’ve lived away from Michigan, I’ll still prefer to purchase Koegel’s new 1 lb chubb, as doing so is SO much easier.
Putting it all together we finally ended up with a fully-tested recipe.
Authentic Flint Coney Sauce in Abbott’s Style
Ingredients
- 4 lb beef heart approximate weight
- 1/2 cup rendered beef tallow
- 1/2 cup water
- 1/2 cup prepared textured vegetable protein or soy flour, or cracker meal
- 2 medium onions, minced or 1 large onion, minced
- 4 Tbsp ground cumin seed
- 2 Tbsp hot chili powder
- 2 Tbsp salt
- 2 Tbsp garlic powder
- 1 Tbsp sugar
Instructions
- Trim the fat from the beef heart and discard.
- Cut the beef heart into 1" slices, and freeze for one hour.
- Grind the beef heart to a fine consistency.
- Put the ground beef heart into reusable bags, and flatten.
- Freeze the beef heart for one hour.
- Grind the beef heart a second time to a fine consistency. Set aside.
- In a pot, melt the beef tallow over medium heat.
- Saute the minced onion in the tallow until transparent.
- Add the cumin, salt, chili powder, garlic powder and sugar, and stir until incorporated into the tallow.
- Simmer for two minutes.
- Remove from the heat.
- Fold the ground raw beef heart and water into the seasoned beef tallow mixture, mixing completely.
- Add the textured vegetable protein, soy flour, or cracker meal, and blend thoroughly.
- This is the spot where Abbott’s Meats, selling the product uncooked, would bag the mixture, removing as much air as possible, and freezes it immediately. If you want to store the sauce, feel free to do the same.
- To serve, cook the sauce over medium heat until the beef heart just its red color. Simmer for at least 30 minutes. Serve over grilled Koegel Viennas, and top with good yellow mustard and finely-chopped white onion.