The Sporting Chef’s Wild Game Easter Menu: 5 Recipes Worth Skipping the Ham For
Most Easter tables look the same. Spiral ham, maybe a leg of lamb if someone's ambitious, a Jell-O salad that nobody asked for. If that's your tradition, no judgment.
But if you hunt and fish — and if you've spent any time with this site — you already know there's a better option sitting in your freezer. Easter weekend falls right at the start of spring turkey season, the tail end of big game season for some, and close enough to the water that fish is always on the table. The ingredients are already there. The only question is what to do with them.
These five recipes are built for a holiday spread. Together they cover every course — a showpiece main, an elegant upland bird option, a fish course for the table, a pasta for the people who aren't sure about game meat, and a rich steak that earns its place at any holiday dinner. All of them are on this site. All of them are worth your time.
Pick two. Pick all five. Either way, Easter dinner just got a lot more interesting.
The Showpiece: Moose Steak with Wild Blueberry-Huckleberry Balsamic Reduction
If you want to put something on the Easter table that makes people stop talking and start paying attention, this is it.
The recipe came out of Dead Meat Season 9, filmed at Dove Island Lodge outside Sitka, Alaska. Chef Edith Johnson of Ludvig's Bistro — whose specialty is rustic Mediterranean cuisine built around local Alaska ingredients — prepared this dish using moose harvested on location, wild blueberries and huckleberries picked fresh, and a balsamic reduction that is one of the best sauces I've encountered on the entire run of the show.
Here's the core of what makes it work: moose sirloin steaks, seasoned with wild blueberry sea salt and fresh spruce tips, seared hard in a cast iron pan, and served with a reduction of blueberries, huckleberries, balsamic vinegar, and honey that cooks down in about fifteen minutes. The sauce is fruity and acidic and complex without being fussy. The steak is deeply flavored and completely unforgiving if you push it past medium-rare — which is the whole point.
The rule here, and Chef Edith said it plainly on camera, is this: pull it rare. Wild game is lean. There's no intramuscular fat to bail you out if you overcook it. Rare going into the rest, medium-rare coming out. That's the recipe.
If you don't have moose, this works beautifully with elk, venison backstrap, or bison sirloin. The technique doesn't change. The animal does.
On the sauce: wild blueberries and huckleberries are ideal, but cultivated blueberries work. Blackberries or marionberries are good huckleberry substitutes. Don't use balsamic glaze — use actual balsamic vinegar and let it reduce properly.
This is the kind of dish that earns its place at a holiday table not just because it looks impressive, but because it's genuinely better than anything you'd get at a restaurant. Serve it as the centerpiece and let it do the talking.
Full recipe: Moose Steak with Wild Blueberry-Huckleberry Balsamic Reduction →
The Upland Option: Quail with Citrus
Easter falls right in the zone where a lot of upland hunters still have birds in the freezer from fall season — quail, pheasant, maybe a few chukar. If that's you, this is the recipe.
Quail with Citrus is one of those dishes that looks like it belongs in a fine dining context but comes together in about twenty minutes on a single skillet. The quail are brined first — two hours in a game bird brine — which does two things: adds moisture to a naturally lean bird and pulls out any trace blood or liquid that would otherwise affect the flavor. After brining, you season lightly (the brine is already doing salt work), brown the birds breast side down in olive oil until golden on both sides, and then build a pan sauce right in the same skillet with butter, red onion, Dijon mustard, and sections of grapefruit, orange, lemon, and lime.
The citrus is what makes this recipe seasonally appropriate for spring. The brightness of four different fruits cut with Dijon and sweet caramelized onion is a sauce that feels light and alive in a way that heavy braised game dishes don't. Finish with garlic chips and cilantro and you have something genuinely elegant.
It also works with pheasant, which is worth noting if you're out of quail. And Scott notes it would work well with fish too — so if you find yourself short on birds, a firm white fish fillet follows the same technique with excellent results.
For a holiday table, two to three birds per person is the right call. Quail are small. Don't underestimate them.
Full recipe: Quail with Citrus →
The Fish Course: Parmesan Baked Halibut
Easter is one of the best times of year to put fish on the table — it's Lent-adjacent, spring fishing is starting in a lot of the country, and halibut is one of those fish that virtually everyone at the table will eat without hesitation.
Parmesan Baked Halibut is the recipe for people who want maximum return on minimum effort. Halibut fillets go into a baking dish topped with a Parmesan crust and roasted until the fish is flaky and the crust is golden. The flavor is rich and satisfying without being heavy, and it plates beautifully — which matters when you're serving it alongside other dishes at a holiday spread.
Scott's note on the cheese: use freshly grated Parmesan rather than the pre-shredded bagged variety. The fresh stuff melts and crisps properly. The pre-shredded stuff has anti-caking agents that prevent it from doing either.
Halibut is available year-round at most fish counters and online seafood retailers. Pacific halibut is the gold standard if you can get it. Atlantic halibut or large cod fillets work as substitutes. If you caught your own — Alaska, the Pacific Coast, or even charter fishing from New England — this is a worthy way to use it.
This is also a genuinely good option if you're cooking for a mixed crowd where not everyone eats red meat. A platter of Parmesan Baked Halibut alongside the moose steak or the quail covers all your bases without anyone feeling like an afterthought.
Full recipe: Parmesan Baked Halibut →
The Crowd-Pleaser: Venison Sausage with Rustic Tomato Sauce
Every Easter table has at least one person who looks at a plate of moose steak and says "I'll just have some salad." This recipe is for them — and secretly for you, because it's one of the most satisfying things on this list.
Venison Sausage with Rustic Tomato Sauce is Italian comfort food made with wild game, and it works on every level. Brown the venison sausages in olive oil until caramelized and cooked through, then build a sauce in the same pan: onion, carrots, garlic, roughly chopped tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, a pinch of sugar, red pepper flakes, kalamata olives, fresh basil, and oregano. Toss warm pasta in butter, mound it on the plate, lay the sausage on top, and spoon the tomato mixture over everything.
It takes about twenty minutes. It serves four. It smells like a Sunday dinner in someone's grandmother's kitchen.
The olives are what make the sauce interesting — they add a briny depth that lifts the whole thing above standard marinara. Don't skip them. And Scott's note about tomatoes holds all year: if it's not summer, use canned tomatoes rather than store-bought "vine-ripened." The canned ones are more flavorful. The fresh grocery store ones are largely a fiction.
This also works as an appetizer course without the pasta — just serve the sausage sliced on a board with the tomato sauce spooned over, and some crusty bread alongside. Either way it earns a place on the table.
Full recipe: Venison Sausage with Rustic Tomato Sauce →
The Light Finish: Fish with Citrus Zest
Easter dinner has a way of getting heavy by the end — rich main, pasta, sides, dessert. This one is the counterweight. Light, bright, fast, and the kind of thing that makes you feel good about what you ate.
Fish with Citrus Zest uses just nine ingredients, three of which are citrus: navel orange, lemon, and lime. The fish is pan-seared, and Scott's technique tip here is worth remembering for the rest of your life: put the presentation side down first. That's the best-looking side of the fillet — the one you want your guests to see when you plate it. Sear it first, get a nice golden crust on it, then flip. When you serve it, the good side is facing up. It's a small thing that makes a noticeable difference on the plate.
The citrus finishes the pan after the fish comes out, building a quick sauce that's clean and acidic and exactly what you need after a plate of pasta or a rich moose steak. The whole dish takes less than fifteen minutes.
This recipe works with virtually any mild white fish — halibut, walleye, perch, crappie, snapper, whatever you have. It's the technique and the sauce that matter, not the species. If you're serving it alongside the Parmesan Halibut, use a different fish for variety. If it's the only fish dish on the table, use whatever's freshest.
Spring is when the fish start moving. This is how you cook what you catch.
Full recipe: Fish with Citrus Zest →
How to Build the Full Easter Spread
If you're cooking multiple dishes from this list, here's how to sequence it without losing your mind:
The moose steak and the halibut can be prepped in parallel — season the steaks early and let them come toward room temperature while the halibut goes into the oven. Bake the halibut first since it can hold warm. Get the venison sausage sauce going next, since it improves with a little extra time on the stovetop. Brine the quail ahead of time — two hours minimum — so they're ready to go in the pan when you need them. The citrus fish and the quail both cook fast and should be your last two items before plating.
The moose steak is the last thing in the pan. Everything else should be done and resting when that cast iron goes on high heat. Sear fast, rest five minutes, and serve immediately.
A few rules that apply across everything on this list:
Season generously. Wild game is lean. Under-seasoned lean meat is the reason a lot of people think they don't like it. Salt early, salt under the sear, and taste as you go.
Don't skip the rest. Every piece of meat on this list benefits from resting before you cut it. Five minutes minimum. The juice stays in the meat instead of running across the cutting board.
Have at least one sauce on the table. The blueberry balsamic, the citrus pan sauce, the rustic tomato — at least one of these should be on the table in a bowl for people to use as they see fit. It's a holiday. Go for it.
More Spring and Holiday Recipes at SportingChef.com
Looking to round out the menu further or find something specific for your harvest?