Best Wild Game Cookbooks – Venison, Turkey, Moose, Elk, Fish, and other Wild Game Cookbooks

Cooking wild game after a successful hunt is not always the easiest thing to master. The most common mistake is simply treating wild game like we would beef, chicken, or pork, which are so prevalent in our diets. Wild game needs special care, but when you take a little time to learn how to prepare, the rewards are well worth it.

Wild Game Cookbooks

Buck, Buck, Moose: Recipes and Techniques for Cooking Deer, Elk, Moose, Antelope and Other Antlered Things

This is not your father’s venison cookbook. Buck, Buck, Moose is the first comprehensive, lushly photographed, full-color guide to working with and cooking all forms of venison, including deer, elk, moose, antelope and caribou. Buck, Buck, Moose will take you around the world, from nose to tail. The book features more than 100 recipes ranging from traditional dishes from six continents to original recipes never before seen. You’ll also get thorough instructions on how to butcher, age and store your venison, as well as how to use virtually every part of the animal. Buck, Buck, Moose also includes a lengthy section on curing venison and sausage-making. Peppered throughout are stories of the hunt and essays on why venison holds such a special place in human society. Venison is far more than mere food. It is, in many ways, what made us human.

The Complete Guide to Hunting, Butchering, and Cooking Wild Game: Volume 1: Big Game

This invaluable book includes

• recommendations on what equipment you will need—and what you can do without—from clothing to cutlery to camping gear to weapons

• basic and advanced hunting strategies, including spot-and-stalk hunting, ambush hunting, still hunting, drive hunting, and backpack hunting

• how to effectively use decoys and calling for big game

• how to find hunting locations, on both public and private land, and how to locate areas that other hunters aren’t using

• how and when to scout hunting locations for maximum effectiveness

• basic information on procuring hunting tags, including limited-entry “draw” tags

• a species-by-species description of fourteen big-game animals, from their mating rituals and preferred habitats to the best hunting techniques—both firearm and archery—for each species

• how to plan and pack for backcountry hunts

• instructions on how to break down any big-game animal and transport it from your hunting site

• how to butcher your own big-game animals and select the proper cuts for sausages, roasts, and steaks, and how to utilize underappreciated cuts such as ribs and shanks

• cooking techniques and recipes, for both outdoor and indoor preparation of wild game

Fish & Game Cookbook

Whether you’re fishing or hunting deer, elk, rabbit, duck, pheasant or dove, you’ll find recipes and helpful tips in this Fish & Game Cookbook to make your game or fish the centerpiece of a memorable meal. These recipes are easy to prepare and use ingredients you can find right on your pantry shelves or at a nearby store.

Afield: A Chef’s Guide to Preparing and Cooking Wild Game and Fish

Afield throws open the doors of field dressing for novice and experienced hunters alike, supplying the know-how for the next logical step in the local, sustainable food movement. Stemming from a commitment to locally grown vegetables and nose-to-tail cooking, Griffiths is an expert guide on this tour of tradition and taste, offering a combination of hunting lessons, butchery methods, recipes, including how to scale, clean, stuff, fillet, skin, braise, fry and more. Fellow hunting enthusiast and food photographer Jody Horton takes you into the field, follows Griffiths step-by-step along the way and then provides you with exquisite plate photograph of the finished feasts. Filled with descriptive stories and photographs, Afield takes the reader along for the hunt, from duck and dove to deer and wild hog.

The Everything Wild Game Cookbook: From Fowl And Fish to Rabbit And Venison–300 Recipes for Home-cooked Meals

Written with the most exotic wild game and fish in mind, this unusual collection features delicious, original recipes designed to please any meat lover’s palate, including:

Deer, wild boar, buffalo, and bear

Pheasant, quail, and partridge

Saltwater and freshwater catch

Rubs, relishes, and marinades

Trimmings and desserts

Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast

From field, forest, and stream to table, award-winning journalist Hank Shaw explores the forgotten art of foraging. If there is a frontier beyond organic, local and seasonal, beyond farmers’ markets and grass-def meat, it’s hunting, fishing and foraging your own food. A lifelong angler and forager who became a hunter late in life, Hank Shaw is dedicated to finding a place on the table for the myriad overlooked and underutilized wild foods that are there for the taking — if you know how to find them.

Eat Like a Wildman: 110 Years of Great Game and Fish Recipes

From a collection of some of the wildest, most delicious wild game and fish recipes that Sports Afield magazine has published over the last 110 years, lifelong food connoisseur and cookbook author Rebecca Gray has selected and infused a collection of wonderful old standards with her own culinary wizardry.

The Ultimate Venison Cookbook for Deer Camp

Hunters will take it up a notch from the usual camp house fare and cook like a pro with more 300 favorite recipes from master hunter Harold Webster THE authority on venison cooking. After more than 50 years collecting recipes, Webster shares his BEST recipes for cooking at Deer Camp. Webster says, Cooking at deer camp is not hard, it does not require long hours in the kitchen, a professional cook, exotic ingredients nor years of cooking experience. But what it does require is: Selectively harvesting game that is suitable for the table. Game that has been properly cared for from the field to the table. A simple menu with a measured level of creativity and variation. And, always enjoyed in the company of good friends. Not a book for the masses, this camp house collection is for that exclusive group of avid sportsmen who live for the deer camp experience. In addition to 300 recipes, hand-picked for preparation at the deer camp, there are stories about hunting and history plus hints, tips, and other helpful information. Recipes like Fajita Venison Salad, Grilled Venison T-Bone Steaks with Bourbon Marinade and Banana Pudding with Banana and Cinnamon Sauce will make ensure everyone s coming to the table… and leftovers will be nonexistent. This is one cookbook that should be on every deer camp shelf.

Deer Burger Cookbook: Recipes for Ground Venison Soups, Stews, Chilies, Casseroles, Jerkies, Sausages

With his trademark down-home sense of humor, Cousin Rick Black shares a wide variety of deer burger recipes, so you’ll never get bored eating the same old chili and jerky. Black even reveals his award-winning family bratwurst recipe. Techniques and flavors borrowed from Mexico and Jamaica spice things up, and the book also includes recipes for large crowds.

Wild Gourmet: Naturally Healthy Game, Fish and Fowl Recipes for Everyday Chefs

Looking for new ways to prepare the wild game you harvested this season? Do you want easy recipes that produce unique and delicious results? Do you need tips for processing your venison that will all but guarantee top-notch flavor?

In Wild Gourmet, America’s most-respected chefs share their favorite recipes covering a menagerie of wild meats and a world of flavors. This scrumptiously illustrated cookbook features easy, step-by-step recipes for everything from salmon to whitetail, wild boar to quail and turkey.

Bonus Recommendations:

Mushrooming without Fear: The Beginner’s Guide to Collecting Safe and Delicious Mushrooms

Novices eager to collect tasty wild mushrooms will find this unique guide invaluable. Unlike others, it focuses only on those types that are both safe to eat and delicious. Most important, it presents the eight rules of mushroom gathering in a straightforward fashion—including “Never, never take a mushroom with gills” and “If a mushroom smells rotten, it is rotten.” Among the many mushrooms covered are the cep; the red-cracked, larch, bay, and birch boletes; hen of the woods, chanterelle, trumpet chanterelle, hedgehog fungus, common puffball, horn of plenty, and cauliflower mushroom. Each is identified with several color photographs and identification checklist, and there’s also information on mushroom season, handling, storage, and cooking, complete with recipes.

The Complete Book of Butchering, Smoking, Curing, and Sausage Making: How to Harvest Your Livestock & Wild Game (Complete Meat)

Here’s the ideal hands-on guidebook for self-sufficient farmers, ranchers, and hunters with step-by-step instructions on butchering beef, venison, pork, lamb, poultry, and goats. Time-tested advice on how to cure the meat by smoking or salting helps you preserve your harvest. A final section explains how to make sausages. Numerous mouth-watering recipes are included.

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Also published on Medium.