Venison Burgers

I use venison a lot in cooking and have made a lot of venison burgers, but this was one of the best.

We made the burgers a little smaller when we ended up with 2 more people to feed at the last minute but they were still amazing. Even with our variety of picky eaters, the burgers got a thumbs-up plain, with just ketchup, with cheese and mustard, and with everything but arugula. One of our last-minute dinner guests had never tried venison and thought it was better than any beef burger he had had before.

A wonderful recipe that I’ll use again.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: The tester, Lori, sent us this note a year or so after first making these venison burgers.] Knowing my boys were having their wisdom teeth out and would be eating soft foods for a few days, I made sure to ask what they would like for dinner the night before surgery. As it was deer season, they both agreed it should be this venison burger. We always make the burger patties according to the recipe but always change the cheese and toppings to fit each individual’s personal taste. We just finished dinner and, as usual, the burgers were perfect!

What a delicious preparation for venison burgers! Since my husband has been a hunter for years, I’ve had my share of big game and game birds to prepare. The ground bacon and egg yolks added an unbelievable level of moistness to the venison meat. And we loved the smokiness of the bacon in the burgers.

I served them with Emmentaler cheese melted on top and an additional slice of cooked bacon on top. We had an arugula salad on the side with a Dijon vinaigrette. We left the bun off—the meat was awesome by itself! With so much ground venison, elk, and antelope around here, I wish I had found this recipe years ago. I’ve got it now and will use it often.

If you’re eating venison because it’s low-fat, this isn’t the recipe for you. But if you’ve some venison and want to make something tasty with it, this burger is the way to go. Venison would normally make for a very lean burger, but this recipe solves that problem by adding a generous amount of bacon and egg yolk.

As written, this venison burger recipe will make some really large burgers. I used only 1 pound of meat and scaled the recipe accordingly. I still got 4 pretty big burgers out of it. The bacon, in addition to adding fat, adds a nice smoky flavor that really complements the intense meatiness of the venison. The resulting burger is quite delicious. I have to say, I much preferred it to a beef burger.

I used the suggested condiments, and they worked very well as a package, but feel free to dress the burger according to your whim.

I was unsure about this recipe as I’m not used to cooking with game, but since I had access to some, I thought I’d try. I found I liked venison burgers very much.

I had to grind the 2 loins I was given in the food processor so I did the bacon at the same time. This made assembling the burgers very easy. The resulting mix was very wet. I seared them in a cast-iron skillet for 5 minutes and then turned them to cook for another 4 minutes for a medium burger.

They were mild tasting and very delicious. There was no gamey taste at all and they were tender to the point of almost falling apart. One taster said his burger did fall apart while he was eating it, but mine just had a few bits come away from the edge; however, I didn’t load up with condiments to the point where I’d have to squeeze it all together to eat.

I’d definitely make this again, perhaps adding a little more seasoning for extra flavor and maybe leaving out 1 egg yolk to make a drier mix.

This recipe makes 4 large deer burgers. Ground bacon and 4 egg yolks are mixed with the venison to add moisture. I grilled the burgers over charcoal and found the recipe’s timing to be accurate. The result was delicious.

I used crunchy dill pickles and that was an added wow factor, as the flavors worked really, really well together, plus the combination of textures was perfect. Because these burgers were so rich, I might suggest making them a little smaller, either by reducing the amounts or by making perhaps 5 instead of 4, and adjusting the cooking time accordingly.