As an avid gardener, I have one fluffy little nemesis that steals my herbs and lettuce all summer long: the wild rabbit. Luckily, I have two boys who love to hunt and the rabbits are as tasty as they are cute. Most people I talk to never think about rabbit as food but if you haven’t tried it, you are missing out. This is a simple recipe for grilled rabbit.

My friends are surprised when I tell them grilled rabbit tastes a lot like a very tender, clean pork loin but with a flavor closer to chicken. Most animals don’t get tough meat or strong flavors until they age a couple of years and rabbits just don’t make it that long. So when we bring one of these to the table, we have a super clean, tender white meat that is very versatile in your cooking.

We’ve tried several wild rabbit recipes but our favorite is this easy grilled rabbit recipe where we wrap the fresh rabbit meat in bacon and grill it on our Traeger Grill.  It is very similar to our Pheasant Poppers recipe if you’ve tried that one before. But rabbit is even much cleaner meat than a pheasant.

This post is part of our Foraging Minnesota series. Visit that page for more wild food and game or these other related articles below:

Looking for other wild game and fish recipes?

• Traditional Minnesota Shore Lunch
• Grilled Pheasant Poppers
• Backcountry Rainbow Trout
• Ruffed Grouse Tenders

More Grilled and Smoked Recipes:

• How to Smoke a Turkey Breast
• 321 Ribs Recipe
• Beer Can Chicken for the Grill
• Honey Bourbon BBQ Ribs
• Cast Iron Grilled Chicken
• Chicken Wings on the Grill
• Smoked Roast Beef Recipe (Video)

Other wild foraged and picked food ideas:

• Sumac Tea Wild Lemonade
• Rhubarb Mojito
• Fried Asparagus
• Strawberry Jam
• Maple Syrup
• Crab Apple Jelly

Where to Get Rabbit Meat?

This YouTube video from Shooting Times and Country Magazine demonstrating how to easily butcher your backyard rabbits. It really isn’t very hard to do. If you don’t hunt or trap your own rabbit, you can buy some fresh rabbit meat from a specialty store.

Grilled Rabbit Recipe

Step by Step Instructions to Grill A Rabbit

1. Once your rabbit is butchered, cut the meat into bite-sized pieces and wrap with a half piece of bacon. Using a toothpick, poke the meat and the bacon together and leave enough of the toothpick left sticking out to use as a handle.
2. Place the rabbit and bacon bites into a small or medium bowl. Coat with a marinade for at least half an hour. Overnight is preferred. I used the Lawry’s Honey Bourbon marinade (Amazon affiliate link here: https://amzn.to/2LdMjKA).
3. Then, place the rabbit bites on the grill turning them regularly to cook all sides of the bacon.

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