Honey Peppered Deer Jerky (2024)

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Hunting season is coming to a close and if you are like me, your freezer is full of magnificent venison just waiting to be made into some jerky! That is exactly what I did with this venison roast, I made some sweet and spicy great tasting jerky with local honey and fresh cracked black pepper.

Making the Jerky:

I used a venison roast that I harvested this past December on a hunt with some friends and family while I was visiting South Texas. I am happy that I was able to get some much needed meat for my freezer as well as being able to use my VERY expensive out of state Texas Hunting License. Ha.

I thawed my freezer packed venison roasts in a bowl of water in the refrigerator prior to slicing. Make sure to defrost any meat in the refrigerator and NOT on your kitchen counter. Submerging the meat in water will speed up the thawing process immensely.

After thawing and rinsing the deer roast, trim as much fat and silver skin as you can from the meat. Fat spoils faster than meat and will shorten the shelf life of the finished jerky.

Since I was going to use my Weston Jerky Slicer to cut the roast into jerky strips, I had to first slice the roast into 1" thick pieces so they would fit into the slicer. Using a sharp knife really helps slice through meat that is not partially frozen. If you do not have a really sharp knife, you can put the meat back in the freezer for 1-2 hours to partially freeze/harden the meat so slicing evenly sized strips is easier. Visit my how to slice jerky page for more information on slicing meat for the perfect jerky.

To slice the perfect strips, I fed my venison steaks through the jerky slicer and it cut it perfectly like always. You do not NEED this slicer, you can slice the meat by hand into strips.

I was making three different recipes with these two deer roasts. Above you can see my deer jerky pieces separated into three 1lb piles. This Honey Peppered Vension Jerky is one of the three recipes I made.

I added all the ingredients into a bowl and mixed them together very well. Don't those red pepper flakes look delicious?! This great tasting recipe has soy sauce, honey, fresh cracked black pepper and many more great tasting ingredients. You will find the complete recipe at the bottom of the page.

Add the marinade to a plastic bag and add the jerky strips. Mix the jerky around so that all the pieces are coated in the mixture. Release all the air from the bag and marinate for 6-24 hours. The longer you marinate the more intense of a flavor!

When the meat is finished marinating, strain any excess marinade in a colander. The jerky should soak up about half of the marinade.

Lay out several paper towels and place the jerky strips on the paper towels. Place more paper towels on top of the strips and pat them dry. This helps speed up the drying process in the dehydrator, oven, or smoker. The paper towels should not remove any of the pepper or red pepper flakes on the jerky.

I used my Excalibur Dehydrator when making this recipe. So above you can see the strips laid out on the dehydrator trays with space between for air to flow and dry each strip evenly. You can also use an oven or smoker to make this recipe. For step by step instructions on how to use a dehydrator, oven, and smoker to make jerky; make sure to visit my How to Make Jerky page.

This jerky took just over 4 hours at 165° to dry perfectly and boy did it taste GREAT! The fresh cracked black pepper and red pepper flakes really gives this jerky a fantastic flavor with a little bit of heat. The saltiness of the soy sauce and the sweetness of the local honey comes through at the end of the chew. You NEED to make this jerky. Definitely put it at the top of your list. It also can be made with beef and will turn out just as tasty.

Once the jerky is finished and cool, store in an airtight bag or vacuum seal for longer storage. Read my tips onstoring beef jerkyfor more information.

Old Pro Tips:

• Marinate for 24 hours for best flavor.
• Ziplock bags make the best container for marinating. Release all the air from the bag and roll up so all pieces are totally covered when marinating. Rotate several times throughout the 24 hours for even marinated jerky.
• Allow jerky to cool for 5 minutes before checking to see if it is finished drying.
• Double the red pepper flakes for a more spicy jerky.

For more in depth directions on how to dry your jerky, visit my pageJerky Making Methods.

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