Venison (deer, elk, antelope, moose) Shoulder Roast
Here’s my take on cooking antlered game shoulder and neck roasts. It’s not an exact method and do keep in mind if the meat doesn’t fall off the bone, keep cooking and make sure you’ve got some liquid, bbq sauce, etc. keep it moist during the last phase of cooking.
Venison (deer, elk, antelope, moose) Shoulder Roast
Ingredients
Oven Method
- Don’t bother boning it out. Rub it liberally with olive oil salt and pepper (or your favorite rub). If you’ve got time, wrap it with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. If not, start cooking. Place it in a lightly greased (pan spray OK) baking pan. You can add celery, carrot and onion to the pan if you want to make sauce or gravy out of the pan drippings later.
- Place the uncovered baking pan in a preheated 350 – 375 degree oven and turn shoulder occasionally until evenly browned. Now add some liquid to the pan. I think I used beer on the show. You can use beer wine, chicken or beef broth – the idea is to start with an inch or so of liquid and don’t let it get below about ½-inch of liquid or the meat won’t braise and the pan will burn. Cover tightly with a lid or heavy duty foil, lower the temperature to 325 – 350. Depending on the size of the shoulders or number of shoulders in the pan, the next step can take up to 6 hours.
- After a couple of hours check the pan and add liquid if needed. Keep checking in another 2 hours, then every hour until the meat starts to pull away from the bone easily. It’s not done until the bone can be easily removed. You can use the meat for bbq, tacos, “pulled pork” type sandwiches, etc. It can also be frozen in batches for later use. I do a bunch of shoulder and neck roasts at a time, vacuum package the meat in batches and use it when needed.
- venison recipes
Smoker
- Rub with olive oil salt, pepper as per Step 1 above.
- Place in a 200 degree smoker for 6 – 8 hours.
- Place shoulder on two layers of heavy duty foil. Pour some bbq sauce over and wrap snugly. Place back in the smoker for another 4 hours or until meat falls off the bone.
Grill
- Rub with olive oil salt, pepper as per Step 1 above.
- Place in a medium hot grill +/- 300 degrees, as far away from the heat source as possible.
- Grill covered if possible, until internal temperature reaches 155 – 160 degrees. Wrap with foil as per Smoker Step 3 above, lower heat to low and cook for another 2 – 3 hours or until meat falls off the bone.
Love this recipe! I don’t have to worry about boning out the shoulders anymore! I usually make this into pulled venison sandwiches or big burritos. All of my hunting buddies who I,ve told about this also love it.
Absolutely delicious recipe. Followed the low and slow on the Traeger. It turned out perfectly tender, melted away from the bone! Thankful to find this recipe as now I will eat what the husband hints.
And much less work (and waste) than boning it out. Thanks for the review!
Scott just got back from the Yukon with some of the meat from A Giant Bull moose what about brisket ? (Cant mess this up only let you
Import 20 kilos out of 640 pounds of meat)
I haven’t prepared a moose brisket, but I’ve got a guy whose recipes are solid. https://www.americanhunter.org/content/recipe-smoked-moose-brisket/
Have always used your oven method exactly.
Beer, broth, etc… Set my oven at 240, it has a 40° temp swing, drops to 200 before it kicks on back up to 240.
Elk, 2 lower shanks 12 hours,
upper shoulder 12 hours,
same for lower shoulders.
Each in my big roaster with a tight lid or foil with lid mashed down.
Fall off the bone is it, your last sentence says it all.
Connective tissue turned gelatinous and meat was like roast, never mushy, each time.
Tried to serve early at 10 hours one time, had to pull meat off the bone, was chewy and connective tissue had not dissolved.
Little longer, maybe hotter would have fixed it. Sometimes you get a stall just like brisket when moisture cools the meat.
You could not have said it better, Fall Off the Bone, final word!
You are the Best, keep bringing us great shows a joy to watch!
You may be a genius or just above average. haha
So true. If you try and speed up the process, it’s not the same. You can give it a kickstart with a pressure cooker, but it’s not quite the same.
This was delicious! So simple! Used it for my husband’s Florida deer shoulder roast. Used beer. Took about 6 hours. Even better than the crockpot. Thank you!
great with deer shoulder season with poultry seasoning.
The roast I have was given to me by a friend I think it is the whole uppersholder and arm altogether. I cooked it low n slow about 10 hrs, falling off the bone. Is it best to pull the meat off hot or cold.
It’ll come off much easier when it’s a tad warm. If you let it cool, just re-warm it and the meat will come off easily.
Love this recipe. Used Perone beer and fresh squeezed blood oranges, garlic, salt & Pepper and a bit of olive oil for the braising This was the first time I ever cooked a doe shoulder roast.. I cooked it covered at 350 and it only took a couple hours. The meat fell off the bone. It was delicious. It was probably only about 3 lbs.
Glad you liked it. An easy way to get a great yield out of a sinewy part of the animal.
Okay Scott, here we go! It’s Christmas Day, just put a Pronghorn shoulder roast in the oven 30 minutes ago. Will add mesquite rub infused water with carrots, taters, sweet taters & celery at one hour then wrap up in foil for two hour then add water as needed. Probably let go for 8 to ten hours at 350*…. Gonna watch the Niner’s blowout the Ravens in the meantime! Thanks for the ideas…
Sounds like a great plan. Um…sorry about the game. That was a tough one to watch.
I made a venison shoulder with this recipe last night. The only difference I did I think was using cream of chicken and cream of mushroom soup plus the chicken broth. It was unbelievably good my very first time making venison. Thank you so much for sharing your talent! As you said, it was fall off the bone, tender and juicy.
Now that i know who to come to for wild game recipes I anticipate a whole lot more of good eattin’. Thanks for sharing. This cooked up
perfect and was delicious. The only thing I would change next time is cooking more roasts at the same time, just as you suggested.
looking forward to your stew with polenta next.