You don’t have to search too hard to find a special day for something to celebrate, be it golf or outdoors or food or booze or whatever other thing someone wants to create a day (or month) for to hype.

Some of the hype is cool and some is just, well, maybe self-serving or silly. No doubt you’ve seen some “celebrations” that made you think What th’ What? and then ignore them. According to this site there are plenty of day and month celebrations.

But we’re not going to ignore National Hamburger Month. We’ll toss up a big “Yaayyyy!” and break out the venison burgers, pickles, condiments, chips and other favorite goodies for the traditional kickoff to summer. Memorial Day will be here soon and that means plenty of grilling goodness. Venison burgers are nutritious, delicious (if you don’t overcook them!) and are a great way to celebrate a successful hunting season.

Our good friends at Weston have an incredible blog with scads of great recipes for everything from salsa and fruit preserves to venison and wild game. You can check out their make site and products some super cool kitchen items for home or your deer camp in their wide selection, too. Pick up a “safe slicer” mandoline, for example, or a new meat grinder to create your own venison burger and sausage.

Here are three great venison burgers from the Weston blog that you can try this summer. They’re great!

Sportsman’s Burger
Ingredients
3 lbs. venison
1 lb. bacon
3 cloves garlic, minced
2 shallots, minced
3 tablespoons fresh parsley
2 tablespoons worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons olive oil
3 teaspoons black pepper
1 egg

Tools

Weston® Flat Top Dial Scale
Realtree Outfitters™ Meat Grinder by Weston®
Weston® Meat Lug or Meat Mixer
Weston® Vacuum Sealer
Realtree Outfitters™ Burger Press by Weston®
Weston® Patty Paper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Weigh out your meats with a Weston® Flat Top Dial Scale. Cube the venison into 1″ pieces, then grind with a Realtree Outfitters™ Meat Grinder by Weston®. We used the #8 Electric Meat Grinder & Sausage Stuffer (33-0201-RT). The meat texture for burgers should be fine, so grind it through once with the coarse grinding plate, once with the medium, and finally, once with the fine grinding plate.

Meanwhile, bake bacon strips for 10 minutes, crumble, and add to the ground venison. The bacon should still be somewhat raw so that it cooks fully once the burger is grilled. Mix together all of the ingredients in a Weston® Meat Lug or use a Weston® Meat Mixer if you’re making this recipe in bulk. Put the mixture into a gallon sized Weston® Vacuum Sealer Bag and seal with a Weston® Vacuum Sealer. Refrigerate and let marinate for at least 6 hours.

Once marinated, open the package and press the meat mixture into burger patties with a Realtree Outfitters™ Burger Press by Weston®. This is a large recipe, so we used Weston Patty Paper to keep the extra patties separated during freezer storage. Grill to your preferred temperature.

Serve with your favorite burger condiments! We recommend arugula mayo (fresh chopped arugula mixed into mayo) on fresh whole wheat buns.

Gouda Stuffed Butter Burger with a Weston Press
This burger oozes deliciousness: Fresh beef ground with butter, stuffed with gouda, fried in a skillet, and topped with a bearnaise style sauce & an over-easy egg. The skillet fried butter-beef makes for a burger with a crispy crust on the outside and warm pink center on the inside.

*Tip before you begin: Chill your grinder head and keep the meat and butter as cold as possible before and during the grinding process. This will keep your mixture from turning to mush and also keep it from sticking to your press. Chilling your burger press isn’t a bad idea either.

1. Grind
Cube the beef, then run it through the coarse plate of your Weston Meat Grinder. Cut the butter into small pieces and distribute evenly throughout the grind. Grind the mixture through the fine plate of the grinder. Mix in the black pepper with your hands.

2. Press
Roll the ground beef into six separate balls. Set your burger press to 1/4#. Place a piece of patty paper on the bottom of the press, put a ball of meat toward the back of it, then press and remove. If your patty sticks to the top, it needs to be chilled again. Repeat for the remaining patties.

3. Stuff
Once you have your six patties, place one patty on the press, place a wheel of cheese in its center, then stack a second patty on top of that. Press down the top, lift, and you will have one half pound Gouda stuffed patty.

4. Fry
Preheat your skillet and pour in the olive oil. Once the oil is hot but not smoking, place the patties into the skillet and cook over high heat. Covering the skillet will reduce your risk of being burned from the popping oil and also cook the burger more quickly, but it’s not essential. Be sure to flip the burger after 5 minutes.

5. Cook the Eggs
While the burger is frying, cook your eggs over-easy. You can simply drop them into the skillet with the burgers if there’s room, or use a separate frying pan.

[We cooked ours sous vide-style to get a perfect egg that is safely cooked but still just pours right over the top of the burger. We don’t have a fancy machine, so we put a pot of water on over low heat, placed the eggs in – shells on (like you’re hard boiling them… except you’re not) – and used a digital thermometer to monitor while we cooked them right around 142 degrees for two hours.]

6. Make the Sauce
Also while the burgers fry, make the sauce by combining all of the ingredients. It’s as simple as that.

7. Serve
Once the burgers have nicely browned crunchy crusts, place them on a plate and smother with a [heaping] dollop of sauce and one egg each. If you don’t mind the mess, you can serve them on a bun, but we preferred to go at it with a fork.

Bratwurst Burgers
We’re spicing up Burger Season! You don’t have to be a Sausage Making Master to use our Sausage Tonics and Dusts. We poured some Weston Bratwurst Sausage Tonic into freshly ground pork and quickly formed that into patties with our Weston Auto Rapid Patty Maker. The result? Bratwurst Burgers that, while delicious on their own, we served up with Apricot Ale-Marinated Cabbage, onions & peppers, and mustard sauce.

Makes six half-pound patties

– Ingredients – 

3 lb pork, cubed
9 tablespoons Weston Bratwurst Sausage Tonic

Ale-Marinated Cabbage
1 head cabbage
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup Samuel Smith Apricot Ale (or ale of your choice)

Mustard Sauce
12 oz condensed milk
3 tablespoons extra hot horseradish mustard
2 tablespoons olive oil
tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 teaspoon salt

1 red pepper
1 yellow pepper
1 green pepper
1 large Spanish onion

– Tools – 
Weston Cabbage Shredder or Mandoline Slicer
Weston Vacuum Sealer with Vacuum Sealer Canister or Vacuum Sealer Bag
Weston Meat Grinder
Weston Auto Rapid Patty Maker
Weston Patty Paper


Ale-Marinated Cabbage
Use a Weston Cabbage Shredder or Weston Mandoline Slicer to shred your cabbage.

Place the cabbage into a large bowl and sprinkle with salt. Smash with a wooden spoon for two to three minutes (juice should be seeping from cabbage). Sprinkle with cayenne, then mix in brown sugar. Transfer the cabbage into a Weston Vacuum Canister (or bag), then pour in ale and cider vinegar. Seal with a Weston Vacuum Sealer, then place in the refrigerator. Allow to marinate at least 6 hours – the longer you marinate, the fuller the flavor will be.

Mustard Sauce
Use a Weston Kitchen Mixer with the whisk attachment to whisk together all ingredients. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

Brat Burgers
Grind your pork through a Weston Meat Grinder, through a coarse grinder plate. Then grind half of that through a medium plate (so that you have half coarse grind, half medium grind). Mix the Bratwurst Seasoninginto the ground meat.

Remove the plate and grinding knife from your grinder, then attach the stuffing star to the auger. Attach theWeston Auto Rapid Patty Maker to the grinder, turn the grinder on, and feed the meat into the patty maker. Slide the handle back and forth as the patties form, dropping the patties from the patty maker. Use Weston Patty Paper to keep the patties separated.

Place patties on the grill and cook until browned and internal temperature is at least 145 degrees Fahrenheit.

Slice onions and peppers with a Weston Mandoline Slicer, then grill along with the Ale-Marinated Cabbage. Serve Brat Burgers on Pretzel Buns with onions & peppers, cabbage, and a heaping dollop of mustard sauce.

Get More Recipes Here at the Weston Blog! Click here to find them … 

Want even more venison recipes? Check out the outstanding variety in ShopDeerHunting.com’s great selection of venison cookbooks. You’ll get an incredible array of recipes from top chefs and everyday hunters who submitted their favorites. Plus, many of the cookbooks have tips on in-field care, table prep and more. Check them out here now!