As seen in the Nov/Dec 2018 Issue of Bear Hunting Magazine!

If you’re looking for an easy recipe that yields tender beef-like barbecue, look no further than this little jewel.

Recently I harvested the largest bear of my life in Oklahoma. The old boar’s teeth were wore down and he’d spent many winters in the den. I wasn’t sure how good the meat was going to be. I took the bear to the processor, but kept one backstrap for immediate use. The meat hadn’t been frozen, and I cooked it approxi-mately 8 days after the kill.

Begin by trimming the fat off the backstrap and liberally coating all sides of the meat with salt and pepper. When I say liberal, I mean liberal – don’t hold back. I then used a hot sauce, called Tapatio, and coated the meat in the red sauce. Then I coated the meat in Sweet Baby Ray’s barbecue sauce. I put the meat into the crockpot and cooked on medium heat for six hours. That’s all I did.

Once the meat was cooked I sliced it thin on a cutting board to make probably the world’s best bar-becue sandwich. The meat was brisket-like, extremely tender and held ZERO wild game flavor. I coated a wheat bun with chipotle mayonnaise, layered on the bear meat, put on more barbecue sauce, and then put a hefty helping of vinegar-based coleslaw. The sand-wich was complete.

I’m not kidding, I’ve never eaten a better sandwich. Try this recipe this fall, and just for kicks, don’t tell anybody it’s bear meat until dinner is over. It’s our responsibility as bear hunters to utilize the meat of every bear we harvest. The more ways we can cook it the better.

Do you have some great recipes? Share them with us – please email clay@bear-hunting.com