Bacon Venison Burger

I feel beyond blessed with the job that my sweet husband has. He lays carpet for a local who has his own flooring business. Not only does B-bear absolutely love his job, but his boss is an amazing guy. My B-bear doesn’t talk bad of people often (if ever), so it wasn’t a surprise after his interview he was commenting on how awesome Gorge was and how nice he was. And I’m just like “mhm. Sure baby. I thought my new boss was cool too. You thought your last boss was cool too… sure.” One day while out running errands I went with him to pick up his check from George. I never should have doubted my B-bear.

Around Christmas George and his wife gave us two small hams and a few other odds and ends that they weren’t going to be able to use up soon. And just a couple weeks ago he gave B-bear and I some venison from the deer he shot while hunting. Now I’ve had venison Jerky before (yum!), but I personally have never made anything with deer meat. We were given a steak that we put in the freezer but the pound or pound and a half of ground venison was destined to be something. And B-bear wanted to eat it soon. What was I to do?

I searched for recipes on Pinterest, of course! And I found one that sounded promising. “The Best Venison Burger Around!” from Ashton, author of the blog Landing in Love.

These burgers were seriously amazing. I actually ate 2 burgers. I never eat two burgers, it’s so rare, but oh my goodness. I loved them. And I got a very big grin from B-bear when I asked him what he thought.

I have a problem with following a recipe with exactness, especially if I think something would be really good in it. So I changed it up a bit.

Here’s what I used:

6 slices of bacon, minced
1 TBSP. olive oil

1 TBSP. Worcestershire sauce

1 Egg, beaten

Pepper to taste

1TBSP Garlic, minced (me and B-bear love garlic so I upped it from 1tsp)

1.5 lbs ground venison (We just had less venison, so working with what I have)

1 small white onion minced

Hot Sauce (I added just a few drops of my favorite hot sauce Marie Sharp's Fiery Hot Sauce)

Step one: Cook up the bacon until it’s crispy and delicious. Pour the bacon and grease into a bowl and allow to cool.

Step two: Add the oil to the pan and add the onion. I waited until they were starting to soften before I added the garlic. Add this mix to the bacon.

Step three: after the bacon/onion mix has cooled add the venison to it. Mix in everything else: egg, Worcestershire sauce, pepper, and hot sauce. Combine it well.

Step four: Let it sit in the fridge for some time. In other recipes and from what I saw other people say was to leave them overnight if possible. So I made up this stuff the morning of and left them to sit. (Ashton’s recipe said 20 minutes.)

Step five: preheat grill/stove.

Step six: shape into patties and grill, I made about 6 decent burgers.

Toppings: Romaine lettuce, a pickle sliced up from Raus Country Store in Frankenmuth, MI, onion, bbq sauce, mustard, and more hot sauce.

B-bear suggested toasting the potato buns we used with garlic butter. I also decided that the next time that we tried it we would cut up a jalapeño and soften it with the onions and garlic.