Venison bacon is a sweet and smoky formed bacon made with a mixture of ground venison and pork fat which is seasoned, cured, and smoked.
This recipe has been on my to-do list for a long time. Venison bacon is a very popular treat in hunting circles, but I never could find any recipes to make my own, just pre-made cure mixes that had to be purchased. For those of us who take a lot of pride butchering our own deer and processing everything from scratch, that wasn't acceptable. So I set out to create this recipe.
Venison Bacon
Venison bacon is made with ground meat, rather than a whole cut such as pork belly in traditional bacon, and is sometimes more accurately called formed ground bacon. It is prepared and cooked like venison sausage, but loaded with bacon seasonings and thinly sliced.
Does Venison Bacon Taste Like Bacon?
Venison has a distinctly different flavor than pork which will be reflected in the bacon. However, venison bacon does have the same traits as traditional bacon - wonderfully sweet, smoky, and salty!
Equipment Needed for Venison Bacon
The list of equipment needed for making venison bacon includes affiliate links, allowing you to quickly and easily purchase the same equipment I use from Amazon.
- Smoker - You can make venison bacon in a traditional oven, but you will get the most flavorful bacon by smoking it. In particular, I recommend electric smokers when making any type of sausages because they allow for more precise temperature control as you gradually step the temperature up during the cooking process.
- Deli Slicer - You can use your chef knife to thinly slice the bacon when it is done smoking, but it is far quicker and easier to have a deli slicer on hand. Plus, you can use it to thinly slice my smoked rump roast recipe too!
- Meat Grinder - Since this is a ground and formed bacon, you will need to grind your venison trimmings with a meat grinder. For tips on grinding venison read my How to Butcher a Deer tutorial.
Venison Bacon Ingredients
If you don't regularly make bacon or sausage, there are a few ingredients you need for venison bacon that you don't likely keep on hand.
- Cure - Cure is required because you are cooking the meat for extended periods of time at very low cooking temperatures. The cure keeps the meat safe to eat by preventing dangerous bacteria from breeding while the meat cooks. There are multiple different cures you can purchase, always read the label to ensure you use the recommended amount.
- Dry Non-Fat Milk Powder - This ingredient can be found at any grocery store. It is added to sausage to act as a binder, reduces shrinkage during cooking, and retains moisture.
- Brown Sugar - Sweet and smoky is the classic bacon combo. The brown sugar lends a wonderful sweetness to the meat and creates a sticky glaze on the exterior. Feel free to add/substitute maple syrup as well.
- Ground Venison - I make venison bacon with a combination of ground venison and pork fat. 80% lean meat and 20% fat is a good starting point, but you can go up to 30% fat if desired. Don't go too much leaner than 20% fat or your bacon will taste dry and less flavorful. If you had your venison processed by a butcher you can ask them what fat ratio they used.
How to Make Venison Bacon
Venison bacon is best smoked at a low temperature that is slowly stepped up to allow the meat to soak in the smoke flavor before fat starts rendering from cooking. I recommend setting your smoker to 130 degrees and added mild-flavored wood chips, such as apple wood. Every hour the temperature can be raised 10 degrees until the smoker reaches 180 degrees. The bacon is done when it reaches an internal temperature of 160.
Venison Bacon
Ingredients
- 7 pounds ground venison
- 3 pound pork fat (ground)
- 2 cup non fat dry milk powder
- 2 cup water
- ½ cup brown sugar
- ¼ cup maple syrup
- 3 tablespoons smoked paprika
- 5 teaspoons black pepper
- 6 tablespoons kosher salt
- Pink Cure (use recommended amount per package instructions - typically 2 teaspoon per 10 lbs of meat)
- wood chips for smoking (such as apple wood)
Instructions
- Add milk powder, cure, and all seasonings to a dish and mix with water.
- Add ground venison and pork to a large bowl and pour water & seasoning mixture over the meat. Mix thoroughly to combine.
- Line multiple baking pans or disposable baking tins with plastic wrap or aluminum foil and press meat mixture evenly into each pan so it is 2 inches thick. Cover meat and set in the refrigerator overnight.
- The following morning remove meat from the pan and let rest while you start the smoker.
- Preheat smoker to 130 degrees and add wood chips.
- Place formed bacon on smoker racks and increase the smoker temperature 10 degrees every hour until the smoker reaches 180 degrees. The bacon is done when the internal temperature reaches 160 degrees.
- Remove bacon from the smoker, let cool, then thinly slice. The bacon is fully cooked and can be enjoyed as-is, or fried in a skillet like traditional bacon.
Michael Franek
Did a Half of a batch, was pleased with how it turned out, I and my wife felt it tasted more like summer sausage with a bit more added sweetness. Would make this again but might change the pork fat to bacon trimmings.
Jns222
Great tasting Bacon. Took 14hrs in smoker following the directions.
Al
Turned out better than I expected. Great flavor. I used 50% pork but 50% venison. Couldn't be happier.
Ryan V
First time I tried making venison bacon. This is a perfect base recipe. Can either leave it as is or add more pepper and garlic which is what I might do. You will not be disappointed! Thank you so much for creating this recipe!!
Larry O
Made this recipe Tuesday and turned out great. It tasted great cold, but it tasted excellent fried. I only made the 10lb recipe. Next time I'm going to double it to 20lbs. , I can see the 10lb isn't going to last too long the way everyone is eating it. One tip is to grind the venison and place in a colander over a bowl or food tub to drain any excess blood or water from freezing and thawing. I let the meat set in fridge over night to drain and then dump the blood before proceeding to making the recipe.
Andrew Smith
I made 20 lbs of this recipe with 30% pork. It was easy to make. Let me tell you, this is amazing. It’s good cold, it is really, really good heated up. Everyone that tried this loved it too. Even my non-venison eating wife. Thanks for sharing this. I’ll be making this for years to come.
TC Watson
I am assuming you take the meat off the baking sheet once you go to put it into the smoker..
Bobby
I just made some bacon from a Backwoods venison bacon processed kit.It is good but lends more towards a summer sausage flavor. I love the sound of your recipe and plan to use it next.
Micker Gadd
If no smoker available, how would you proceed using a conventional oven? We are thinking about adding Liquid Smoke, however not sure how much to use.
Appreciate your thoughts.
Thank you
Fox Valley Foodie
This will be tricky to replicate in a conventional oven because most oven temperatures don't go as low as needed for this recipe. Baking at a higher temp will render a lot of the fat out and greatly reduce the quality of the final product. However, you can use a conventional oven if you are able to replicate the temperatures called for in the recipe.
You will have to experiment with how much liquid smoke to use. I would be inclined to guess between 1 teaspoon and 1 tablespoon, but I haven't tested it myself, so that is just a guess off the top of my head.
Ken W
What grinder die size did you use when you ground the meat.
Thanks
KW
Fox Valley Foodie
Twice through a medium grinding plate works, or once through the medium then once through a fine grinding plate works depending on how course you want it. The second method is my preferred way.
Kendall
I tried this recipe and it seems to have too much water. I let it sit in a cake pan, in the refrigerator, overnight. But when I put it on the grill grate in my smoker, it started falling through the grate, as it was so soft. I had to flip it over on to a jerkey drying screen to stop it from falling through the grate and on to the bottom of the smoker.
Has anyone had a similar experience?
Isn't the salt supposed to displace water to avoid bacteria growth?
I was just wondering if anyone has tried to reduce the amount of water in the recipe and how it turned out.
The flavor of the bacon that I made has a sweet and smokey flavor. It tastes good, but with less salt flavor than regular bacon.
I am trying to make ground venison bacon that tastes just like the Johnsonville brand bacon flavored sausage that can be purchased at the grocery store.
Fox Valley Foodie
Thanks for the feedback. I have made this recipe multiple times as written and I haven't had that issue. My first thought is maybe you need to compact the meat more to hold it in place. When I smoke it I can see where it sags slightly into the grates, but it doesn't come close to falling through. How was the texture after you finished smoking it?
Kendall R Stevens
The texture after smoking was pretty good. However, the grooves from the grill grate were still there.
I will definitely try this recipe again. Next time I try it though, I will reduce the overall amount of water and perhaps replace some of the other water with ice cubes, like I do when making venison jerky.
PS.
This recipe makes really good BLT sandwiches.
Ian Sirrell
Sounds like you never worked it enough to get a good bind, when you can pick up a handful and turn your hand upside down for the meat to hopefully still stay on your hand, if it falls you need to work the mixture more to get the bind.
Jason Waldron
I made this bacon and I am impressed by how well it turned out. My smoker only goes as low as 200 degrees, but it still turned out moist and tasty. I’ve already sent the recipe to a couple friends. 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼
Jim Teiber
Can’t bacon salt or bacon extract be used for more bacon flavor?
Fox Valley Foodie
Yes, but I don't expect that it will change the flavor much. Bacon is primarily flavored with smoke and the cure, both of which are used in this recipe. It would be a fun experiment though.
Bigdog
Followed the recipe exactly as written used sanalac dry milk and used 50/50 venison to pork butt(butcher did not have straight pig fat),after sitting over night it was perfect. Smoked for 8 hours and sliced the next day. Best venison bacon ive had in a long time
John Nodolf
Can you cook these on grill mats?
RICHARD JENKINS
I use soy protein 1 cup instead of 2 milk and use 1 oz of sausage binder that you can get at butcher packer or other companies that sell sausage ingrediences, butcher packer sell soy powder.
Essa
Can I use a mixture of ground pork and pork roast? I’ll put it through the grinder.
Fox Valley Foodie
Fatty pork shoulder would work but you would have to use more of it to ensure you get enough fat in your bacon.
Katie
Do you know of any substitute for the dry milk? I would love to try your recipe but we have dairy allergies in our house.
Fox Valley Foodie
I don't have a good substitute, I would just omit it from the recipe.
Judy Taylor
Great recipe! What is the purpose of the kosher salt, can some be omitted to make less salty?
Fox Valley Foodie
Salt is a flavor enhancer, however, feel free to reduce it if you are sensitive to it.
Billie
Maybe coconut powdered milk would be s good substitute. I’m going to try that. We have milk allergies as well.
Howard White
I have used a non-diary creamer in place of milk powder in a number of recipes. It might work here also.
Tracy Gardner
How about using non dairy coffee creamer
Becky
Can you provide how much is in the 50 servings? Oz?
Fox Valley Foodie
An expected yield of ~80% of your starting weight would be reasonable depending on the exact time and temperature. It can vary by the batch, which is why I don't have it listed to the ounce.
Brent Johnson
Hi, I'm assuming with the cure that this is somewhat shelf stable if vacuum sealed, almost like a summer sausage? Any ideas on the non-frozen vacuum sealed shelf life, whether room temp or refrigerated?
Fox Valley Foodie
Since homemade recipes aren't professionally tested for shelf stability like store-bought products, I would recommend keeping them frozen until ready to use, then store in your refrigerator. In my experience, pork fat starts to develop a funky flavor after six months, even when frozen.
Kris
What is the best way to reheat venison bacon. We had our deer processed and I just got a package out of the freezer.
Fox Valley Foodie
I prefer to fry it up in a skillet until heated through and beginning to crisp. It cooks incredibly fast.
Tony
My processor uses 10% beef fat with my ground venison. Can I add an additional 10 to 20 of pork fat and nox it to make up the difference?? Will the beef fat be ok??
Fox Valley Foodie
Yes you can. Pork fat would be ideal, but beef fat would still taste good.
Milisa
Very interesting! We have started making our own venison sausage and smoked sausage and I'm loving it. This is definitely going on the list to try.