Bacon-Wrapped Venison Backstrap Roast

Name: Bacon-Wrapped Venison Backstrap Roast
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 25 min
Total time: 45 min
Yield: 6 servings
Ingredients: 1 2 pound venison backstrap roast; 1/2 cup teriyaki marinade (I used Moore’s because it’s an Alabama-made product); 10 slices applewood-smoked bacon (center cut slices are not long enough)

Venison is as organic as it gets! It also has less cholesterol than turkey and 50% less fat than beef. My Bacon-Wrapped Venison Backstrap Roast is marinated in teriyaki marinade, then wrapped in bacon before roasting. Perfect for Thanksgiving, Christmas or any holiday. Yum!

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It's finally deer season here in Alabama! Scott harvested an 8 point buck last year with his bow and the first thing we made was my Bacon-Wrapped Venison Backstrap Roast. If you have a deer hunter in your family, consider making this impressive alternatives to turkey and ham (or add it to your menu) for one of your Thanksgiving or Christmas meals.

We will be using our FoodSaver vacuum sealer to freeze venison burger, sausage, stew meat, cubed steak, and of course backstrap (tenderloin).

What is venison backstrap?

It's another name for the loin-not tenderloin. Backstrap refers to a length of loin on the back of a deer, elk, moose, etc. It's the ribeye in beef and loin in pork. Tenderloins are the two strips of very tender meat under (and inside) the loin, behind the ribs. This is filet mignon in beef.

Is deer meat inexpensive?

For my family, it is also drastically less expensive than beef because my husband and son are avid hunters and we have a deep freeze full of venison hamburger, sausage, tenderloin, and stew meat. I often mix one pound of ground venison with one pound of 80/20 ground beef because venison is extremely lean.

This week alone, I used the combination of ground venison and ground beef for meatloaf and shepherd's pie.

Is Venison a healthy choice?

Venison is as organic as it gets! It also has less cholesterol than turkey and 50% less fat than beef so we're talking lean protein here!

If these reasons aren't enough to sway you over to the wild side of the freezer, check out these 27 Benefits of Harvesting and Eating Wild Venison: A Look at Venison vs. Beef

Is this recipe hard to make?

I have to give my husband, Scott, photo creds for the how-to pictures below. He prepared this roast completely on his own, including wrapping the bacon and roasting it in the oven. He is handy with a knife because he dresses and processes the deer himself most of the time. I usually do the cooking but he surprised me with this roast one day while I wasn't at home. If he can do it, you can too!

We believe in "If you kill it, you cook it" when it comes to game animals.

This roast was cooked to somewhere between medium and medium-well to suit me (the Queen of this domain), but the men in the house prefer it more on the medium-rare side. I recommend using a digital in-oven meat thermometer. It takes all the guess work out of reaching exactly the internal temperature you desire.

In case you didn't know, the internal temperature will continue to rise about 5 degrees after you remove it from the oven, so, if you want your roast to end up at 150 degrees, take it out of the oven at 145 degrees.

The reason for letting it stand 10 minutes before slicing isn't to let it cool down enough to eat. While cooking, the heat causes the juices to head toward the center of the roast. If you cut it immediately, you will lose all those juices. If you let it rest just a few minutes, it gives it time to reabsorb the juices making the roast juicier. Ok. Enough of the food science-I just love it, though!

Scott prepped and cooked this roast and took the how-to pics with his phone. Here he is trimming the silver skin. It is a very lean cut of meat so not much fat to trim . We use a FoodSaver vacuum sealer at this point if we were going to freeze it. It seems like it more than doubles the freezer life of the meat.

(These pictures were taken before our kitchen renovation! 🙂

How to make Bacon-Wrapped Venison Backstrap Roast

After marinating the roast and draining it, arrange 8 pieces of bacon side by side on a work surface or cutting board. Lay two pieces of bacon in the middle end to end.

Place the roast on top of the pieces of bacon that are touching end to end and pull these two pieces up, covering the ends of the roast and lay them on top of the roast. Then, pull up the crosswise pieces of bacon and over lap them on top of the roast and two pieces of bacon covering the ends.

Secure the bacon with toothpicks or flip the roast, seam side down, to make sure the bacon doesn’t shrink when baked. Place in a small, greased aluminum foil-lined roasting pan or baking dish.

Can I make this with beef?

If your husband or son do not hunt, you can still make this yummy roast with beef tenderloin or pork loin.

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Why spend time outdoors with your kids?

I couldn't resist throwing in a picture of my guys all decked out in camo. It's an older picture (Grayson is now 20) but it shows how much fun they have being outdoors together.

Spend some time with your dad this father's day or Thanksgiving hunting, fishing, golfing or just sitting on the front porch swapping stories. Make some memories!

I also love a good old-fashioned fish fry, too!

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