How to Trim Venison Backstrap

Wild Game Cook • November 17, 2023
Recipes

Trimming your venison backstrap can be quick and easy with the following steps (and a little practice)!

First, lay the strap down, exposing the back side (the side with the sinew), and start by trimming off the extra piece of meat up toward the neck end that is attached by silver skin. Cut one end of the silver skin tissue to separate this extra strip of meat from the main body of backstrap and use that end to pull it off in one long strip.

Cut and pull the first long edge of connective tissue
Cut and pull the first long edge of connective tissue

Once that strip of connective tissue is removed, you can hold one end of it, run your fillet knife across the surface of the meaty side, and scrape off more usable meat. You can use that meat to start a trim pile.

Scrape meat off of the connective tissue
Scrape meat off of the connective tissue

On the other long edge of the backstrap, there will be fat and gristle to remove. That can be removed in the same way the first strip was removed (cut the strings of fat and gristle to loosen them and then pull them off) and extra meat can also be scraped from these pieces. After the sides are trimmed, take the fatter end of the backstrap and square it off, leaving enough of the tough connective sheet of sinew behind the meat so that you can grab onto it well enough to pull.

Square off end and leave pulling piece
Square off end and leave pulling piece

Get a tight grip on the exposed end of the sinew. As you tug on that end, run your knife between the sinew and the meat toward the other end - just like you're filleting a fish.

Fillet meat off the sinew like a fish
Fillet meat off the sinew like a fish
Sometimes the meat fillets off nice n easy
Sometimes the meat fillets off nice n easy

Once the meat is off the sinew, you can still scrape more meat off the sinew surface and add it to your trim pile. Most silver skin, fat, or gristle should be removed from the meat at this point, but it's likely that there will still be more in places on the backstrap with little patches off fat and gristle left. Whatever you might have missed, go ahead and trim off with your knife.

Scrape more meat off the sinew
Scrape more meat off the sinew

The less connective tissue left, the better the cut of meat! If there are some rough edges, you can place your knife on the cutting board at an angle to control your cut depth and shimmy it back and forth to clean up the edge of the backstrap.

You can leave your backstrap whole or cut it into smaller sections. Sometimes cutting it into smaller sections makes it easier to remove more silver skin from the meat. In this example, we have a tail section that has some silver skin running through the inside. It can be removed by pulling the meat apart where it is separated by the silver skin (the smaller piece of meat can be the chef's steak!).

Pull apart meat to expose silver skin
Pull apart meat to expose silver skin

Then you can pull or cut the silver skin out.

Remove silver skin from section
Remove silver skin from section

In the end, you should have some nice clean sections of backstrap -- or one big beautiful backstrap. Try leaving them whole: it opens up the cookbook!

One whole backstrap and another backstrap in sections
One whole backstrap and another backstrap in sections

For a more in-depth demonstration, be sure to watch the video above!

--Wild Game Cook

Related Products

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Wild Game Cook

John Wallace, also known as Wild Game Cook, is a proud father, husband, and outdoorsman. John and his wife have 3 children who love the outdoors. John loves to cook and inspire others to get more from their wild game. John and his family's main purpose of hunting is to put food on the table, while enjoying time outdoors as a family. They almost exclusively eat wild game and fish as their source of meat. Whenever John can find time away from work, he can be found hunting, fishing, camping, spending time at the range, at one of his kids' games, or cooking up great meals at the house for family and friends.

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