Today, I’m cooking up some elk backstrap. This is a delicious, marinated elk backstrap recipe that I’ll walk you through step by step. I’ll also give you some tips and details on how to cook your backstrap to perfection. Whether you like it rare, medium, or well done, I’m going to help you figure it all out.
Ingredients
- Elk backstrap – cut into 1” steaks
- Kosher salt
- Black pepper
- Butter
Marinade:
- ¼ cup olive oil
- 2 tbsp. balsamic vinegar
- 2 cloves of garlic
- 1 tsp. Dijon mustard
- 1 tsp. rosemary
- 1 tsp. thyme
- ½ tsp. freshly ground black pepper
- ¼ tsp. smoked paprika
- 1 tsp. kosher salt
Prep
In a large bowl, mix together all of the marinade ingredients. Once that’s all combined, we’re ready to cut our elk backstrap into steaks. One important tip, I like to let the meat defrost in the refrigerator overnight. Once it’s been in there for about 24 hours or so, it will be completely thawed and ready to go.
Cut it out of the package and pat it with paper towels until it’s nice and dry. I highly recommend wearing some disposable food-grade gloves. It will keep your hands clean and make this whole process of handling the meat a lot cleaner and easier for you. You won’t have to wash your hands every five minutes. You’ll want to cut your steaks against the grain. I like to cut mine about an inch thick, but if you like your steaks a little thicker, you can do an inch and a half or go crazy and do two inches.

Once they are cut, use a meat mallet to pound them out a little bit. This will give them a little more surface area so that we get more of a crusty sear whenever we go to cook them. Covering both sides of the meat with plastic wrap will help protect the meat from sticking to the cutting board, from sticking to the mallet, and from splattering all around. I use the flat side of the mallet because we don’t really need to tenderize this meat because it’s backstrap, it’s already super tender. We just want to create a little more surface area and make all the steaks an even thickness.

Now add them into the marinade and give them a good toss. Make sure they are completely coated then cover them with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 1 to 4 hours.

Cook
Once they’ve marinated for at least an hour, they’re ready to cook. At this point, we want to rinse off the marinade and dry the elk steaks really well with some paper towels. Then season both sides with kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper and set aside.

Preheat a cast iron pan over medium high heat. Once it’s preheated, add in some oil. You’ll want to use a high temp cooking oil such as avocado oil. Then pat the steaks dry with paper towels again, right before they go in the pan. You want to make sure the surface of the meat is really dry to ensure that you get a beautiful, crusty sear on the meat. If the meat still has a little bit of moisture from the marinate or the water, it will cause the meat to steam instead of sear. This will leave you with a really bland looking piece of meat instead of that gorgeous golden brown crust that you want to see.
When the oil starts to smoke, it’s time to add in the steaks. Be warned, it will get a little smoky in the kitchen. Cook for a few minutes and check for a good sear before flipping. Every stove, pan, and steak is different, so just keep a good eye on them. Once flipped, add a little butter on top of each steak and let it melt all over.

After another minute or two, start checking the internal temperature of the steaks with a meat thermometer. Keep in mind that the internal temp will continue to rise another 5° or so while it’s resting. Using a meat thermometer really gives you eyes inside the meat. This way, you don’t have to cut it in half to see the doneness and release all the juices. Cook the steaks to whatever level of doneness you prefer. I prefer a medium rare while my husband, Nick, prefers more of a medium to medium well.

Let the steaks rest for 5-10 minutes and then it’s time to dig in. Elk is so wonderful. I find it quite mild in flavor compared to a whitetail deer. They are similar, but elk is a little more mild. But when compared to something like farm raised beef, I find it a lot more flavorful.

No steak sauce needed on these. Just a simple marinade, some salt and pepper, and a beautiful and flavorful elk backstrap.
-- Outdoors Allie