Ground Elk

Recipe for 85% lean ground elk

Elk Burgers

Elk burgers at the Black Canyon outside of Gunnison, CO


This is a great general recipe for 85% lean ground elk. The salt and pepper are optional but really makes a wonderful burger if that is your intention. This recipe is for 10 lbs of meat total (including the added fat). For lesser amounts use a ratio of 2.8 ounces of beef fat for every pound of elk meat.
  • 1.5 lbs beef fat
  • 8.5 lbs elk meat
  • 1/4 cup salt (optional)
  • 1/4 cup black pepper (optional)

First cut the elk meat to the appropriate size for your grinder. I trim the sinew and connective tissue that is easy to get to and leave the rest. I even throw the shanks in (cut to size of course) and haven’t noticed any foul sinew wax when it is mixed in with the rest of my burger cuts. As for meat grinders, I just use a small LEM grinder.

When you have your cuts ready for the grinder, put them in your freezer for 30 minutes or so to harden it up. Once half frozen, run them through your grinder with the coarse plate. After that, run your fat through (half frozen fat is much easier to grind as well). Then mix your ground fat and elk together with the salt and pepper. Once thoroughly mixed, run it all through the grinder once more with a medium plate (or finer plate if you wish). Now all that is left to do is package and freeze it!

A very simple recipe, but sometimes it can be hard to find the correct ratios. This is an example of simplicity at its best!

2 Responses to Ground Elk

  1. Charlene says:

    The boyfriend and I are butchering his elk, we want to make ground elk, but were not sure if we can use tendon in ground elk. Thanks for any and all help.

    • Alex Krebs says:

      Yes you can use tendons. Try to remove the easy pieces but don’t concern yourself too much. I grind up all of my shanks which are loaded with tendons, the trick is just to make sure you don’t burn up your grinder and clean it when the tendons build up at the cutting wheel. Also, grind everything with a coarse wheel first and then mix it all together so you dilute the tendony shanks with the other scraps, mix in your spices and then grind again with a finer wheel.

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