Ultra Juicy Venison Burgers

Name: Ultra Juicy Venison Burgers
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 7 min
Total time: 22 min
Ingredients: 1 pound ground venison (10-20% pork fat added if given option at butcher shop); 1 beaten large egg; 2 tablespoons butter (grated); 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce; ½ teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon black pepper; ½ teaspoon garlic powder; ¼ teaspoon onion powder; ¼ teaspoon smoked paprika; 4 cheese slices; 1 tablespoon olive oil (for indoor skillet cooking); 4 burger buns; Desired toppings (such as lettuce, tomato, red onion, bacon, avocado, condiments, etc.)

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Make your next backyard grill-out extra delicious and put these ultra juicy venison burgers on the dinner menu! These tender venison patties are seasoned with a simple yet flavorful spice mixture and piled on a buttery brioche bun with your favorite toppings. Best of all, you can put these delicious deer burgers on the table in under 30 minutes to make for easy entertaining.

Two venison burgers on top of parchment paper and a wooden serving tray with a beer in the background.

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Why You’ll Love This Recipe
Ingredients
Step-by-Step Instructions
Final Internal Temperature and Cooking Time Guide
How to Store and Freeze Patties
Recipe FAQs
Variations and Substitutions
Expert Tips
Perfect Pairing
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Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Delicious twist on a classic burger: Ground beef burgers are always a welcome summer meal, but you’ll love how that tasty venison brings an added richness and earthy touch.

No dry burgers here: Venison is a lean meat, but thanks to some added butter to our ground meat mixture, every bite is plenty juicy.

Indoor and outdoor cooking options: That’s right — you can cook these ground venison burgers on the stove or outdoor grill. It’s your choice.

Related: If you love wild game meat, make sure you also try my favorite venison chili recipe.

Ingredients

Ground venison: Ask your local butcher to add 10-20% pork fat to your venison when processing. Pork fat renders nicely and adds tasty richness while keeping the burger juicy.

Butter: As mentioned above, this goes into our ground venison mixture to keep the meat moist after cooking. I use salted butter, but you can use unsalted butter if that’s what you have on hand.

Egg: Because it’s so lean, venison can be more delicate to handle than beef. To help keep the venison patties together, the egg acts as a binder, and it also adds moisture.

Worcestershire sauce: This touch of acidity keeps the venison from tasting overly gamey.

Spice mixture: We use a simple mixture of salt, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and smoked paprika.

Step-by-Step Instructions

How to Form the Venison Patties

Step 1: We start by forming the venison patties. To take care of this step, we add the ground venison, whole egg, grated cold butter and Worcestershire sauce to a large bowl and gently combine the ingredients to make one cohesive deer meat mixture (photo 1).

The ground venison mixture in a glass bowl after the ingredients have been combined together.

Step 2: Now we divide the venison mixture to make four even-size balls, shape them into burger patties and then press our thumb in the middle of the meat like so (photo 2). This helps the meat hold its shape while cooking. Keep in mind, the burgers will shrink as they cook, so form the meat to make the patties slightly larger than your buns.

Now we place the burger patties in the refrigerator for 10 minutes. Since venison burgers are a bit more delicate, this helps create a more sturdy patty.

The venison burger patties on a baking sheet with parchment paper before they chill in the refrigerator.

Step 3: After chilling, we stir together the salt, black pepper, garlic powder, onion powder and smoked paprika in a small bowl and sprinkle the spices all over the four venison patties (photo 3). Salt immediately begins pulling moisture from meat, so we want to take care of this step right before cooking. From here, we proceed to our preferred cooking method.

The burger patties on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet with seasoning on top before they go on the grill.

How to Grill

Step 1: We place the venison burgers on greased grill grates over medium-high heat and cook one one side with the lid closed (photo 4).

Two burger patties on a grill before closing the lid to cook on one side.

Step 2: Once the first side has a nice sear, we carefully flip the burger and grill the meat on the other side (photo 5). For my fellow cheese lovers, we add it in the last 30 seconds to ensure it’s perfectly melted and gooey. I used cheddar cheese here, but you can use your favorite melting variety.

The burgers on the grill with a slice of cheddar cheese on top of one patty.

Step 3: Now we remove the deer burgers from the grill, cover them with aluminum foil and let them rest for five to 10 minutes (photo 6).

The burger patties on a plate covered in aluminum foil and the meat rests before serving.

How to Cook on the Stove

Step 1: For indoor cooking, we heat olive oil in our skillet and then add the patties (photo 7). If the pan is too crowded, you won’t get a good sear, so I recommend cooking two burgers at a time.

The patties in oil in a black cast-iron skillet as they cook one one side.

Step 2: After cooking on one side, we flip the patties, add cheese if desired and continue cooking until they reach our targeted internal temperature (photo 8).

The patties in a black cast-iron skillet with shredded cheddar cheese on top as it melts.

Step 3: Like grilling, we want to cover the patties with foil and all the burgers to rest. While these burgers rest, you can make the second batch.

All that’s left is to pile our juicy burgers with our favorite toppings and devour every meaty bite. Good, huh?

Oh, and if you'd like some dishes to serve on the side, you'll love these burgers with some pesto tortellini pasta salad or this comforting jalapeno tater tot casserole.

Bonus: For more burger ideas, you'll also love these Wagyu burgers.

Final Internal Temperature and Cooking Time Guide

How long you cook your venison burgers depends on how you like them cooked, so keep this chart handy. Please note that this cooking time is for the total time spent on the grill or skillet. You’ll flip the burgers in the middle of the listed total cooking time.

Since ground deer meat is so lean, I don’t recommend cooking the burgers past medium, but this is ultimately up to your personal preference. To ensure your venison patties are at the proper temperature, use the cooking time as a guide but double check the internal temperature with an instant-read thermometer.

Doneness	Temperature	Approximate Total Cooking Time
Rare	125 degrees F	4 minutes
Medium rare	135 degrees F	5 minutes
Medium	145 degrees F	7 minutes
Medium well	155 degrees	9 minutes
Well done	160 degrees	10 minutes

Looking down on a two venison burgers on parchment paper on top of a wooden serving board with a beer in the background.

How to Store and Freeze Patties

If you’d like to make the deer burgers ahead of serving time, you can shape them as directed, cover them in plastic wrap and store in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 24 hours. When you’re ready to eat, season the meat and then cook as directed.

You can also freeze the burgers for even longer storage. For freezing, I recommend covering them in plastic wrap and then storing the patties in a freezer bag for up to three months.

To thaw, you can place them in the refrigerator overnight. If you need them sooner, leave the patties in the plastic wrap and sealed freezer bag and place them in cold water in the refrigerator until thawed.

Recipe FAQs

What’s the best way to cook venison burgers?

I prefer grilling for that touch of smoky flavor, but the skillet still makes a tasty burger. If you’d like to capture some of those smoky notes on the skillet, you can try adding ¼ to ½ teaspoon liquid smoke to the ground venison meat when forming the patties.

How do I keep my venison burgers from drying out?

As discussed, venison is lean. For the juiciest burger, get a ground venison with added fat, don’t skip the grated butter in the mixture, keep the internal temperature to no higher than medium and rest the meat. With these few easy tricks, you don’t have to worry about a dry burger.

How do you toast buns?

If grilling, place the buns on the grates for anywhere from about 10-30 seconds. Light, fluffy brioche buns only need about 10 seconds or so while sturdier buns may need closer to 30 seconds. Just keep an eye on them to ensure they don’t get too toasty.

To toast the hamburger buns indoors, place them in a 350-degree oven for two to three minutes.

What should you serve with venison burgers?

You can’t go wrong with your favorite BBQ side dishes. My absolute favorite is my smoked macaroni and cheese — it’s a guaranteed hit. You’ll also love some baked beans, potato salad and macaroni-bacon salad on the side.

And, of course, it’s not a burger without your favorite toppings, so make sure you have plenty on hand. Besides lettuce, tomato and red onion, you can’t go wrong with cheese, avocado, green chiles, smoked salsa, BBQ sauce, bacon jam or crispy bacon slices, chili, sautéed mushrooms — feel free to get creative.

Is venison a type of red meat?

Yes, venison, or deer meat, is classified as a type of red meat. Venison and other red meats have a high level of myoglobin, which is a protein that gives the meat that signature red color.

A close-up of a hand grabbing a venison burger on parchment paper and a wooden serving tray.

Variations and Substitutions

If you don’t have Worcestershire sauce on hand, you can use balsamic vinegar instead.
Want to add a smoky depth of flavor? Swap the butter for bacon grease.
This venison burger recipe makes ¼-pound patties. You’re welcome to double the ingredients to make ½-pound burgers.
For another cooking method, follow this tutorial to make smoked burgers — so good!
Feel free to experiment with different seasonings. Your favorite steak seasoning works well, or you can use a Creole seasoning for a touch of spice.

Expert Tips

Be gentle with the meat: If you overwork the meat, it can leave you with tough burgers.

Use a cast-iron skillet for indoor cooking: A cast-iron pan is great for even heat conducting and creating the perfect sear on the outside. Who doesn't love a nice crust for some added texture?

Flip only once: Flipping only once helps keep the burgers together.

Don’t use a spatula to press down on the burger patty: This squeezes out those wonderful juices. The burgers will cook just fine without pressing them.

Freeze the butter before grating: A quick 10 minutes in the freezer makes the butter easier to grate.

Perfect Pairing

Beer and burgers were made for each other, especially when you enjoy a nice doppelbock with venison. The nutty, caramel-like malt and touch of dark fruit notes works well with the earthy deer meat, and it’s big enough to stand up to all those topping layers. A brown ale is a delightful alternative as well.

If you’re feeling a little fancy and would prefer wine, a pinot noir is wonderful with venison. Like the deer meat, pinot noir is known for earthy, herbal flavors with hints of berries. Plus, it’s low in tannins to keep it from overpowering that lean meat.

For your next backyard cookout, everyone will love these very best venison burgers. After one bite, you’ll want to make these flavorful burgers every chance you get.

Cheers!

A venison burger with a bite taken out of it on top of parchment paper and a wooden serving tray.

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5 from 141 votes (133 ratings without comment)

Ultra Juicy Venison Burgers

Why You’ll Love This Recipe

Ingredients