Over the past decade there has been quite a trend of people who want to know where their food comes from. Even urbanites with little to no experience in the outdoors have been intrigued by hunting their own meat. I suppose the main driving force behind this has been a growing distrust of the purity of what you’re buying in the grocery store. This trend is good for hunting, especially bear hunting, where we have grown accustomed to hearing people say, “You can eat bear meat?” or “I had bear meat once; it was not very good.” 

Well, bear meat can be very good, and, like most of you, I have tried it many different ways. But these days, I gradually migrated into just a few ways that are my favorites. I could add a couple ways to use bear meat to this list (such as stew meat, which is terrific) but I’d like to give you the four ways I most often turn my beasts into feasts.  

Pot Roast 

Slow cooking in a crockpot is a great way to tenderize bear meat while making sure you have no issue with the trichinella. Put a roast in the crockpot and cover with water. Drop in about three beef bouillon cubes, some minced garlic, a chopped onion, and give it a good dose of seasoned salt (I like Lawry’s). Some people like to dump in a package of onion soup mix. Cook for about 6-8 hours until flaky and so tender it falls apart. Thicken the drippings to make gravy for the meat and a side of mashed potatoes. Man, is it good! 

Summer Sausage 

For this, I use a commercial seasoning mix and a secret ingredient, bacon. I like the Hi Mountain Seasonings Summer Sausage mix—it is really good. If you like a little bite to your summer sausage, go with their Hunter’s Blend mix because it has a little spice to it.  

Get some bacon ends and pieces at the grocery store; they usually come in 3 to 5-pound packages. Slice it up and mix 75% trimmed bear meat with 25% bacon. Mix in the seasonings and grind it fairly fine. I run mine through the grinder once with a coarse plate and again with a fine plate. Then, let the mix sit overnight before smoking.  

You’ll need to use a tube on the grinder or get a sausage stuffer. Once you put it in the sausage casings (they are included in the Hi Mountains Seasonings kit), set your smoker on 180 degrees and smoke for three hours. As with all bear meat, you want to make sure the interior temperature is at least 140-150 degrees. Everyone who tries this will love it, guaranteed, even though many people have a difficult time accepting that this is bear meat.  

Grilled Backstraps 

This is generally the only part of the bear that I grill. Because bear meat needs to be cooked well-done, it’s hard to fry or grill most parts of it without it getting tough, dry, and chewy. I think this is the primary reason behind all the people who have had a bad experience with bear meat and think they do not like it. Many of the cuts can get pretty tough when cooked well-done. Fortunately the loins are the exception, but the key to cooking them tender is the low and slow method.  

Cut the loin into steaks about an inch thick, even a little thicker is okay once you get the hang of it. First thing is to get the grill really hot and brown the steaks on both sides. You want to sizzle the grill marks into the sides of the steaks and get almost a crust on them without them getting blackened. Then, move the steaks off to the side of the heat and cook them slowly until they are brown all the way through. You want the interior to be about 150 degrees. Another option is to wrap them in foil for the remainder of the cooking, which helps hold in the moisture and can keep the steaks from drying out. This creates some nice, juicy steaks. 

If you’re doing this on a gas grill, you can just turn it down and leave one burner going while you put the meat on the other side of the grill away from the flames. If you’re cooking over charcoal, put all the coals off to one side and after you brown the meat, move the steaks to the other side. 

For seasonings, I have had marinated bear steaks that were amazing, but I have not done that myself. I usually just sprinkle some Lawry’s seasoned salt and drop them on the flames! Seasoning them is something many people like to experiment with.  

Breakfast Sausage Patties 

Breakfast sausage is made very similarly to the summer sausage I described earlier. I grind the 75/25 bear meat to bacon mix, but this time I add a breakfast sausage seasoning to it. I wrap the ground meat in one-pound packages, which makes about four patties. Make the patties thin and fry until crispy on the outside.  

I have tried several kinds of breakfast sausage seasonings to mix in, but I have settled on two favorites. Hi Mountain Seasonings makes a country style seasoning kit that is mouth-watering. I also fry it loose and add the crumbles to homemade white gravy (some people call it a Roux) and put it over biscuits. Hey, us northerners can love biscuits and gravy too! Cabela’s has a German breakfast sausage seasoning mix that is really good as well. If you’re familiar with Johnsonville sausages, that’s what you’ll get with the German seasoning.  

So, these are my four favorite ways to make bear meat and I’m getting hungry thinking about it. I am going to go make a feast out of the beast right now!