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This wild game sausage breakfast burrito recipe has become a staple of our archery elk camp meal plan, and it’s equally adept for any style of hunting camp. Portions of burrito filling are cut into rectangles, vacuum sealed, and frozen. Heat a tortilla over a fire and indulge for breakfast. Or dinner. Or whenever. Keep the prepared slabs of filling chilled in a cooler, properly packaged in vac bags, and they’ll last all week in camp. These calorie-dense burritos will replace nutrients and energy lost during a long hunt, and they’re damned tasty!
INGREDIENTS
2-3 lbs. cubed russet potatoes
2 red/yellow bell peppers
1 sweet onion
12 eggs
12 oz. shredded cheddar, Colby jack or pepper jack cheese (choose your favorite!)
1 cup tomatillo salsa
Olive oil
1 lb. wild game sausage (recipe below, but feel free to sub in one you’ve made before)
3 tbsp. salt
Hot sauce to garnish
Read: Kitchen Knife Sharpeners for Wild Game Cooks
Sausage Recipe
This recipe uses a 75/25 ratio of rough ground duck to pork fat, but you could sub in any other bird like ground goose or even upland birds. Just add more fat if the bird is lean. Add a tablespoon each: salt, sage, black pepper, chopped juniper berries, rosemary, thyme, and water. Mix until the sausage gets a little sticky. When the protein extraction has happened it will hold its shape and texture nicely.
Loose sausage is an ideal use for all sorts of wild game—birds or beasts.
INSTRUCTIONS
1. Prepare sausage.
2. Chop and measure all ingredients.
3. Go back to the store three times if you’re like me.
4. Preheat oven to 375-400F.
5. Boil potatoes with 1 tbsp. salt. Strain and let cool.
Maintaining an edge on your knife is important in the field, and in the kitchen.
Harness the power of Work Sharp electric and manual sharpeners, no matter the scenario.
6. Sauté onion and pepper in olive oil.
7. Lightly brown sausage (it’ll finish cooking in the bake).
8. Add a lining of parchment paper in the bottom of a 9×13-ish casserole pan and put in cooked sausage. If you don’t have any paper, just butter the crap out of the pan and don’t miss a spot or it’ll stick.
9. Whisk eggs, salt, and salsa together. Stir in cheese, sautéed vegetables, and potatoes, and pour over the cooked sausage in the pan. Add to warm oven and bake 50-60 minutes, or until a knife comes out clean. You’ll see some oil on the knife but shouldn’t see any runny egg.
Slabs of prepared burrito filling.
Convenient for packaging to eat on long trips.
10. To remove from the pan to cool, put a cutting board over the top of the casserole dish, and using hot pads, flip it over in one smooth motion like you would ramping a bike. If you don’t believe you’ll fail and crash. Let the egg cool to room temp for an hour, out of reach of any bird dogs (ask me how I know about this), and cut into 8-10 even pieces. Put on a sheet tray with parchment paper and pre-freeze overnight, vac sealing afterwards. You could vac seal before freezing if you have less time, but liquid might creep up towards and into the seal.
11. In camp: Start a fire, heat up a cast-iron skillet, add at least a tablespoon of olive oil, and drop in however many servings of burrito filling needed to fill all the stomachs … but don’t crowd the skillet. I was able to do 4 servings at once in one large skillet. The best tasting result was to brown all sides of the rectangle and use a spatula to cut the rectangle into slices to also brown the last two sides. We turned it into a scramble when we were less patient. The egg is cooked and you’re using a hot, oiled pan, so your cleanup will be minimal—nothing you can’t wipe out with a paper towel.
12. Heat tortillas on a grate or directly on wood with tongs. Add burrito filling plus any sauce. Roll up and eat!
Wild game recipes can be simple and beautiful—at home or in camp.
