Buffalo Pheasant Burger

By Jeff Benda

When I’m watching a game on a Monday night in the fall, I crave two things – burgers and buffalo wings. I created this recipe to embrace my football food craving using some pheasant in my freezer. I deboned the breasts, wings, and thighs from 2 pheasants and ran the meat through the grinder yielding about 1 pound. As always, you can absolutely use this recipe with other game birds like turkey or grouse.

Yield: 4 Burgers

Prep time: 20 minutes

Total time: 30 minutes

Ingredients

• 1 pound ground pheasant (from 2 birds)
• 4 Tablespoons melted butter
• 1 cup Buffalo wing sauce
• 2 Tablespoons olive oil
• 2 celery stalks with leaves, roughly chopped
• 4 Tablespoons Blue cheese dressing (homemade or store bought, see note in the instructions)
• 4 Brioche buns

Directions

1. In a medium size mixing bowl, combine the ground pheasant, 2 Tablespoons melted butter, and 2 Tablespoons Buffalo wing sauce and mix thoroughly.
2. Form the mixture into 4 evenly sized patties.
3. Heat a large skillet over medium heat. Add 2 Tablespoons olive oil to the skillet and swirl to coat well. Add the burgers to the hot skillet and cook for 3 minutes. Flip the burgers and pour the remaining 2 Tablespoons of butter mixed with 2 more Tablespoons Buffalo wing sauce over the burgers. Cook for about 3 more minutes until the internal temperature reaches 160 degrees F.
4. Blue cheese dressing is a snap to make at home. Combine blue cheese (crumbles work fine), buttermilk, a little bit of mayo and mix until you like the consistency. That’s it! You can add lemon juice if you want the dressing to have a little more zip to it.
   
5. Remove burgers from the skillet and place each one on a bun. Top with blue cheese, celery stalks & leaves, and the remaining wing sauce. Grab a stack of napkins and enjoy!