Grilled Venison Steak with Béarnaise Sauce Recipe

A mouthwatering Grilled Venison Steak with Béarnaise Sauce is one of our favorite venison steak recipes. It's a show-stopping dish that is perfect when you want to feed family and friends a beautiful venison steak dinner.

Venison Steak

Grilling a perfect venison steak is somewhat of a badge of honor for most wild game home cooks. That perfect warm, pink center with a beautifully seared outer crust. This venison steak recipe works for your deer, elk, antelope, moose, or even beef steaks.

As you start to think about how you are going to butcher your deer, elk, or antelope this year, I want to encourage you to keep your backstraps, top round, bottom round, and eye of round whole. When I was first introduced to butchering a deer, everyone in my hunting party sliced their backstraps into 1-inch-thick medallions. And the other cuts were chopped up into stew meat or ground into burger.

However, I'd love for you to save these big, beautiful cuts of meat from the hindquarter for venison steak recipes like this one. The secret to a tender, melt-in-your-mouth grilled venison steak is to dry or wet age it for a week or two, and then to tenderize it using a Jaccard meat tenderizer before cooking.

Every year, I butcher whitetail, mule deer, and elk for clients who want to know they are getting their own venison returned to them without having it mixed with others in a big batch at a butcher shop. Every single one of my clients has told me they love jerky, but they also appreciate that I take the time to cut them nice thick tenderized venison steaks from the top round and bottom round they can enjoy in a cast iron skillet or on the grill.

How To Cook Venison Steak

I always recommend you cook a venison steak to medium rare and pull it off the heat between 125- and 130-degrees F. But I never judge anyone for wanting to cook their steaks more or less than that. In May 2016, Longhorn Steakhouse conducted a poll across their 491 locations to determine how Americans like their steaks cooked. It turns out that 2.5% prefer their steaks rare, 22.5% opt for medium-rare, 37.5% choose medium, 25.8% order medium-well, and 11.7% enjoy a well-done steak. With such a wide variety of opinions, it is fair to say that a perfectly cooked steak is completely subjective.

No matter what temperature you choose, let your grilled venison steak rest for at least 10 minutes before slicing into it. You can wait up to 15 minutes before losing too much heat if your steak is nice and thick. But the biggest take away I want you to get from this grilled venison steak recipe is that I want you to let the meat rest before cutting into it.

Slice Venison Steak Against The Grain

After you let your steak rest, then the key is to slice it correctly. Something as simple as the way you cut your perfectly cooked venison steak can take it from okay to spectacular.

I always recommend slicing venison steak on a cutting board before plating it for yourself and your guests. Slicing the steak against the grain will help to improve the tenderness of the slices. But don't slice it too thin. To maximize the flavor and to keep it moist, slice it about ¼-inch thick.

A perfectly cooked venison steak should be the centerpiece of a delicious meal, but it still plays well with others like a Caesar salad, garlic mashed potatoes, French fries, or with some corn on the cob and beans like I did here.

How To Grill Venison Steak

1. Place the venison steak on a cutting board and tenderize using a Jaccard meat tenderizer.

2. Pat the venison steak dry with paper towels, season both sides of the steak generously with kosher salt and black pepper, and drizzle all over with olive oil. Then let the steak sit at room temperature for about 15 minutes.

3. Meanwhile, get your grill hot and ready for direct cooking at medium heat, 350-400 degrees. Clean the grates.

4. Place the venison steak on the grill and cook leaving the grill cover open. Don't walk away! You need to keep a careful eye on the steak and flip it over every minute, keeping it over direct heat. This will allow the steak to cook thoroughly without burning.

5. Cook until an instant read meat thermometer inserted in thickest portion of meat registers 130 degrees F (for medium-rare). Every grill is different, but for mine it usually takes about 6 minutes.

6. Transfer steak to a cutting board and let rest for 10 minutes before slicing against the grain.

Yellow Onion vs. Shallots

I developed this béarnaise sauce recipe using minced yellow onion instead of shallots for the home cook who might live in a small town and not have access to shallots at their local grocery store that are called for in other béarnaise sauce recipes. Or you might live in a suburb or big city, and you just don't want to purchase shallots when you have a perfectly good yellow onion on hand.

Fresh Tarragon vs. Dried Tarragon

But that also might mean you don't have access to fresh tarragon at your local grocery store. So feel free to substitute dried tarragon to make this recipe. And then plant tarragon in your garden next year so you can make the sauce again using fresh and then email me if you think it made a big difference in flavor. I think it does.

How To Make Bernaise Sauce

1. Add white wine vinegar, diced yellow onion, and tarragon to a small saucepan over medium-low heat until the onions are sweated and the liquid has reduced by about half. Remove from heat and let it cool to room temperature.

2. Add the egg yolks, water, vegetable oil, and salt into the saucepan with the reduced white wine vinegar, and heat over a medium-low heat while whisking constantly. The goal here is to whisk the eggs to a custard-like consistency, which should take around 3 minutes. Once you see it start to steam, be extra-vigilant here, because if you overcook the sauce, it’ll turn into scrambled eggs. That's great for a steak and eggs recipe, but not for steak and béarnaise sauce. I like to remove the saucepan for about 20 seconds every minute while stirring to make sure it doesn't overcook.

3. When the béarnaise sauce thickens and reaches the custard-like consistency, add the butter and the remaining chopped tarragon, and whisk until the butter melts and is incorporated into the sauce. The sauce is best served right away but can hold well for about 30 minutes if you prefer to get it done before you start to grill your steaks.

More Great Venison Steak Recipes

If you are looking for more great venison steak recipes, be sure and check out some of these other family favorites:

• Cast Iron Venison Steak Recipe
• Deer Backstrap and Potato Stacks
• Deer Steak and Mushroom Crostini
• Venison Steak and Mushroom Galette Recipe 

Come Deer Hunting in North Dakota

If you are headed our way for North Dakota deer season, check out the North Dakota Game & Fish Department website. And if you want me to come along with you as your camp cook, photographer, or butcher, you can find out more details here.

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