How To Make Venison Burger Stick Together With Juiciness

If I ask you a question, which meat do you love the best: chicken, beef, turkey, brisket, or venison? Most probably, your answer is venison because its flavor is mind-blowing and excellent than any other meat.

Another question is for you which meat recipes do you like the best: roast, curry, burger, grill, BBQ, or fry? As you are here, that means you love the burger.

As a meat lover, I also love to taste the burger. So frequently, I try to cook burgers with many kinds of meat. Once I tried venison burgers. But, alas! 

My burger fell apart and made a mess. Then I took it as a challenge to cook venison burger sticks together. 

If you face the same trouble, then never mind. Walk with me to this article and know the reasons for burgers falling apart, tips and tricks of sticking burgers together, and lastly, an excellent recipe for venison burgers. 

Without more words, let’s get started.

How To Make Venison Burger Stick Together – Tips & Tricks

Perfectly grinding the venison, using the right amount of olive oil, timely flipping, maintaining the proper temperature, time, and oiling the grill grates, preheating the grill before cooking can make your venison burger stick together. 

Let’s explore them one by one- 

Grind the Venison Perfectly

The more smooth the venison grinding is, the more all the cooking ingredients and spices will properly mix with the meat. So you can easily, and efficiently make patties and prevent the burger’s stick from falling apart.  Use a good quality deer meat grinder and grind meat properly 

Mince the Ingredients

You have to properly mince all the ingredients such as onion, garlic, bacon, etc. So they will mix with the ground venison, and you will get a nice texture of burger’s paste. 

Not only that, minced bacon helps the burgers to be dry and keeps them moist when you grill them. 

Use Right Amount of Olive Oil

You have to use ½ cup of olive oil or ¾ cup of oatmeal oil with 2 pounds of grinding meat. The oil helps to keep burgers stick together and prevent sticking while making patties and grilling. 

Use Egg

Use one or two eggs in the proportion of venison meat. Because more or fewer eggs make the mixture too dry or too liquid. Using one egg for 2 pounds of grinding meat is enough. 

Eggs bring a stickiness to the mixture, because of eggs the burger stick will stay together.

Freeze The Mixture

After mixing all the ingredients with the meat, you have to keep it in the refrigerator for a minimum of 30 minutes. And if you have more time in your hand, you can extend the time up to 1.5 hours. This is very helpful for making patties and moistening the burger.

Maintain the Patties’ Shape

You should not make the patties too thin or too thick. You can make the patties 2.5 inches wide and 2 inches thick because this shape is quite ok to stick the burger together. Another thing is don’t give too much pressure to make patties.

Oil The Grates

Before firing your grill, spray some olive oil on the grill grates. Then spread it with tissue paper so that the patties won’t stick with the grates. It also works to keep chicken, turkey, beef, or other meats from sticking to the grill. 

Even when you need to flip them, you can flip them easily without any effort and breaking your patties. 

Preheat The Grill

Grilling or frying always needs to preheat to make your dish crispy and delicious. It is not different in the case of cooking burgers. So preheat the grill for 2-3 minutes at 350°f before placing the burger’s patties in the grill grates. 

Maintain Patties’s Distance

If you keep all the patties one after another, then when you try to flip them, you can’t easily do the task. And sometimes, the patties will get stuck with one another. 

So the safe zone is to keep them 2-3″ distance from one another, not to stick and easy flipping.

Maintain Exact Temperature

You have to maintain a safe temperature in your grill when cooking burgers. You can keep 125°f to 130°f for slow cooking temperature, 130°f to 140°f for medium temperature, and 140°f to 150°f for high cooking temperature.

Maintain Exact Time

Besides maintaining the exact temperature, you have to follow the exact time to stick the burger together. If you use a slow temperature, then cook them for 5 minutes; if you use medium temperature, then cook for 3 minutes, and at high temperature, cook for 2 minutes on each side. 

Don’t Flip Frequently

After you start grilling the patties, you have to wait for some time to let them cook. When the color of the patties slightly turns brown, you can flip the patties to cook the opposite side. 

By following this way, you have to cook the burger properly. When each of the burger’s sides are evenly cooked, they will not fall apart. 

Use Long Tong

You will find many kinds of tongs in the market because all kinds of tongs are not perfect for all types of work. So when you grill the venison burgers, you should use long-handled tongs. It helps you to flip the burgers without any effort. 

By following these simple tips, you can easily make the venison burger stick together. 

Related: How To Keep Burgers From Shrinking On The Grill

A Few Most Important Things You Must Know Before Making Burger

Besides all those tips, you have to keep in mind some other important things to taste a delicious, mouthwatering, and juicy venison burger. The important things are

Choose Pure Meat

As you prepare a burger, that’s why you should use pure venison meat. It will be great if you hunt the deer and use venison brisket to prepare the burger’s patties. 

Use a Thermometer

Earlier I have said how important it is to maintain the exact temperature to make the burgers stick together. But how do you check the grill’s inside temperature if you don’t have a thermometer? 

So use a meat thermometer, push it into the patties, and check the temperature. As the meat thermometer has a digital monitor, it shows the temperature on its monitor when you enter it in the patties. 

Types of Grill

You can use any grill such as gas, or electric, or charcoal grill to cook burgers. But out of them, charcoal grills are the best because you can simply control heat. You can add wood chips to your charcoal grill to add extra flavor to your burgers. 

Types of Wood Chips

Different kinds of wood chips are available in the market, and they all have different flavors. Some common wood chips are hickory, apple, walnut, mesquite, pecan, cheery, maple, oak, etc. 

Walnut wood chips are the best for red meat and wild game smoking. So you want to get a smoky flavor in your burger, then you can use walnut wood chips.

Related: How To Cook Bubba Burgers On Oven, Stove, Grill, Air Fryer and Pan

Why My Venison Burgers Falling Apart – Reason Behind The Scene 

It is sure that the first time I made some mistakes, that’s why I failed to cook the burger perfectly. After learning the correct method of cooking burgers and sticking them together, I can realize why my venison burger was falling apart. 

Here are the reasons or major mistakes behind the scene

• Imperfect Grinding

Grinding the deer meat perfectly is one of the important parts of making smooth patties. As I knew, I would cook burgers, so I had to grind the venison as perfectly as possible. 

So that all the ingredients would mix accurately and helped me to make patties. But, I didn’t maintain it for the first time.

• Adding No Fat

It is another reason why my burger was falling apart. Only lean meat can’t steak together; it needs fat meat. Deer meat doesn’t have any fat; it is totally lean meat. 

As I didn’t have any prior knowledge about it, that’s why I didn’t add fat with the deer meat. So the result was falling burger steaks. 

• Adding No Eggs

The egg has a thick texture on its own. This thick texture helps attach all the burger’s meat sticks together. As I didn’t add any eggs, as a result, the meat was too dry. Consequently, when I made patties, I couldn’t give the exact shape of the patties because the meat was falling. 

• Adding No Oil

I had to use olive oil or oatmeal oil as an ingredient for the burger. When I added a little oil, it would help me give the patties’ exact shape. 

Not only that, because of using oil, the patties mixture would not stick with my palm. That’s why I could shape the patties properly, and they weren’t falling apart.

• Didn’t Freeze

As long as I prepared all the ingredients to cook the burger, I didn’t wait anymore. But, I had to keep the burger mixture in the freezer for at least 30 minutes. 

This time, it would be cool, which would be very helpful for me to make the patties in the right way. 

• Wrong Shapes

I couldn’t maintain the patties’ shape. Sometimes I made the patties too thin, and sometimes I made the patties too thick. 

Both are not recommended for venison burgers to stick together. So the thin patties were easily falling apart, and the thick patties wouldn’t cook properly. 

• Didn’t Spray

It’s common sense to use cooking oil on the grill grates to prevent food from sticking. But, I don’t know how I could forget these simple tricks. 

Because of not spraying oil in the grates, sometimes the burger’s patties stuck with the grates, and I tried to flip them with a tong, so they fell apart. 

• Wrong Temperature

The most crucial mistake that I made, not following the exact temperature to cook the burger. Accurate temperature is a must to cook all kinds of delicious food. But, I used high heat to cook the burger as I thought the more heat I gave, the more tasty the burger would be. 

Because of using high heat, the outer surface of the patties was cooked, but the inner side wouldn’t cook. So they were falling apart. 

• Frequent Flipping

I frequently flipped the burgers. I didn’t give the patties enough time to cook each side properly. Because of too much flipping, the patties were loosened and fell apart. 

Those are the mistakes I had made while cooking the venison burgers for the first time. 

Also Read: How To Tell If Turkey Burger Is Done (5 Ways To Follow)

A Few Exclusive Tips For Moist And Juicy Venison Burgers

I know your mission is not only to cook burgers but also to get a moist and juicy taste. So if you cook the burgers by following the traditional method, you can’t get the juicy taste. Here are some exclusive tips to make it juicy. 

Deer meat is completely lean meat. There is no fat. You have to add some other meat with it to bring a balance between lean meat and fat. There is no hard and fast rule to add fat with venison meat. 

• Follow the 90/10, 80/20, or 70/30 ratio.
• Try to use fresh venison for the cooking burger. But, it is not possible then frozen deer meat is ok. But in this case, thaw them properly to make the burger patties. Fresh meat enhances the chance to bring juiciness to the burger.
• Try to avoid any kinds of liquid ingredients because it makes the mixture much softer. 
• Before making patties, keep the mixture in the freezer for 30 minutes. It helps to moist the ingredients. 

Also Read: How To Tenderize Venison (3 Effective Methods)

Mistakes To Avoid While Cooking Venison Burgers

Making mistakes is a simple human being’s nature. So don’t be upset if you make any mistakes while cooking the venison burger. Let’s know some mistakes you should avoid.

• Don’t hurry. Always remember the more you hurry, the more you make mistakes. That’s why the first hack is never to hurry while cooking any delicious dish. Allot enough time for cooking.
• Before going to the main cooking process, prepare all your essential ingredients and kitchen utensils (grill, pan, tong, charcoal, wood chips or chunk, a source of electricity, water, etc.) beside your hand. It’s a huge mistake not to prepare everything. 
• Keep cleaning your cooking area because the untidy cooking space looks odd and it is very unhygienic. Even it breaks your concentration from cooking. Then you make mistakes. 
• Do some homework before starting cooking. Such as grinding the meat, minced garlic, onion, bacon, etc. That helps you to make the burger within a short time and lessen the chance of mistaking.

A Complete Guide To Make Perfect, Moist And Juicy Venison Burger

After knowing the reasons for burgers falling apart, the right approach to stick the burger together, exclusive tips, avoiding mistakes, now it’s time to learn a delicious recipe to cook juicy and moist venison burgers. 

First, you have to prepare all the ingredients of the burgers. That’s why let’s make a list of ingredients. 

Ingredients for cooking

• Ground Venison – 2 lbs (prefer from the deer you have harvested)
• Minced Bacon – 6/8 slices
• Minced white onion – ½ piece
• Minced garlic cloves- 2 pieces
• Minced fresh Parsley – 2 tablespoon
• Olive oil- 2 tablespoon
• Worcestershire sauce- 2 tablespoon
• Provolone cheese – 6 slices

Ingredients for toppings

• Salt and pepper – ½ pinch or (according to your taste)
• Hamburger buns – 6 pieces
• Cucumber – 6 slices or as per your preference
• Lettuce – 6 pieces or as per your preference
• Tomato – 6 slices or as per your preference

Now you are ready to go to the main cooking process.

Step-1: After gathering all the ingredients, you have to wash them properly to make them germ-free. Then grind the venison meat, mince the bacon, garlic, and onion. 

Step-2: Before mixing them with the venison meat, it will be better to roast them for 4-5 minutes at low and medium heat. You can use olive oil to roast them. After cooking them, let them rest to cool down. 

Step-3: In a small bowl, make a smooth mixture of egg, Worcestershire sauce, and Parsley. The more you blend all the ingredients with a teaspoon, the more they will mixture altogether. 

Step-4: Take a medium-sized soup bowl and add all the ingredients one after another. Then with your hands, make a proper mixture to get them ready to prepare burger’s patties. While mixing them, try to blend them all together. That will help you make exact shape patties. 

Step-5: At this step, divide the mixture into six equal portions so that you can make same sized patties. After that, spray some olive oil on your palm, not to stick the patties with your palm. 

First, take one piece of the mixture in your hand and make a small-sized tennis ball. Then press gently on the ball with your thumb; the ball will automatically turn into round-shaped patties. 

Do the same thing for all the rest of the portion of the venison mixture.

Step-6: Before placing the patties in the grill, you should preheat the grill at 350° temperature for 3-4 minutes. Before preheating, spray some drops of olive oil on the grates. 

When the grill is preheated, place all the six patties on the grates at a 2-3″ distance. At this time, you have to maintain medium heat to cook the patties properly. Wait for 3-4 minutes to cook one side. 

Step-7: When you see the red color of patties change into brown color, flip them to cook another side. Wait for another 3-4 minutes to cook this side. 

Before removing the patties from the grill, keep the provolone cheese on the patties and cook them for one minute. You can use any cheese, but provolone cheese offers you the best taste. 

Step-8: The last cooking step is toasting buns for 5 minutes at low heat because warm buns are the best to eat delicious venison burgers. Toast both sides of buns. 

Step-9: At last, you have made ready all the things to prepare the mouthwatering burgers to fill your hungry stomach. 

First, take one of the half pieces of a toasted hamburger bun, keep one patty, one slice of cucumber, one slice of tomato, and lettuce on the bun. Sprinkle salt and pepper on the toppings if you like. If you don’t like it, you can avoid it. 

Lastly, keep another half piece of the toasted bun on the toppings and push a toothpick.