Is Backstrap Really the Best Steak on Deer?
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Ask a hunter what the best cut on a deer is, and you’ll probably get the same answer before you finish the question: backstrap.
The backstrap has become the crown jewel of venison. It’s the cut featured on magazine covers, celebrated around campfires, and treated with almost religious reverence in hunting culture.
But here’s the uncomfortable question: what if we’ve been overlooking better steaks all along?
The answer is not complex.
We have.
There is a major difference between the best and the most popular. Think about it like this. The most popular kids in your high school weren’t always the best students or the most skilled athletes. People knew them, with good or bad reputations, but largely it was a popularity contest, not judged by skill, merit, personality, or even credibility. Something similar can be said for the backstrap.
DISCLAIMER: Before the angry emails start rolling in, let me be clear: I like backstrap steaks, too. This isn’t an attack on the backstrap. It’s an invitation to look beyond it.
Why Backstrap Became King
Long before hunters debated flat irons, Denver steaks, and shanks, there was the backstrap. Known by many as the loin. For whatever reason, American hunters dubbed it “backstrap,” no doubt due to its location and appearance.
Its rise to fame isn’t particularly mysterious. The backstrap sits in an easy-to-find location along either side of the spine. It removes cleanly with a few careful knife strokes and requires very little trimming. Every deer has two of them, and once sliced into medallions or steaks, they look remarkably similar to the beef steaks most Americans already know and love.
That familiarity matters more than we often realize. For generations, hunters looking to introduce friends and family to venison reached for the backstrap first because it felt safe. It cooked quickly, required little explanation, wasn’t overly “gamey,” and delivered a tender eating experience. Over time, it became the default special-occasion cut, the piece reserved for opening day dinners, holiday meals, and the lucky hunter who tagged the deer. The backstrap earned its reputation honestly over generations and generations of hunters.
But popularity and quality are not always the same thing. After all, the most famous steak on a cow isn’t necessarily the favorite of every chef. Many would choose a ribeye, picanha (sirloin cap), or flat iron over a filet mignon, not because those cuts are more tender, but because they offer something else: deeper flavor, richer texture, and more character.
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The Case Against the Backstrap
The backstrap’s greatest strength is also its greatest weakness. Because the muscle does very little work during the animal’s life, it remains exceptionally tender. But that lack of work also means it develops less connective tissue, less complexity, and often a milder flavor than muscles that spend their lives powering a deer’s movement.
In many ways, the backstrap is the venison equivalent of a beef filet mignon. It delivers tenderness in abundance, but tenderness alone isn’t always what makes a steak memorable. I have sat in many a steak house eating okay filet steaks. Nothing worth remembering here, ring me up, and I’ll be on my way. There are many more exciting steak cuts on deer. Those cuts may be slightly less tender, but they offer something else: deeper flavor, more texture, and a richer eating experience. They’re steaks with personality.
Backstrap can sometimes feel almost too perfect. The grain is uniform. The texture is consistent from one end to the other. The flavor is clean and mild. That’s exactly what many people love about it. They are predictable and safe.
A shoulder steak cut from a hardworking muscle may not melt in your mouth the same way, yet it often delivers a stronger venison flavor and a more interesting texture. The same qualities that make a flat iron, Denver steak, or sirloin steak less famous can also make them more memorable.
That’s the uncomfortable possibility at the center of this debate. The backstrap may be the most tender steak on a deer. But the most tender steak is not always the most interesting steak.
The Challengers
Every king eventually faces challengers.
The backstrap has worn the crown for so long that most hunters never bother looking for rivals. That’s understandable. The king is handsome, reliable, and easy to love. Every deer carries a few cuts lurking in the shadows, quietly waiting for their chance to make a case. Some have legitimate claims to the throne, others are troublemakers, and one of them isn’t even technically a steak. Are you ready to rumble?
The Flat Iron: The Working-Class Hero
If the backstrap was born into royalty, the flat iron earned everything the hard way.
Hidden in the shoulder and ignored by generations of hunters, the flat iron doesn’t look impressive at first glance, with its thick, chewy tendon running down the middle. It lacks the prestige of the loin and the mythology of the tenderloin. Most deer never have theirs removed as a distinct cut at all. Which is a shame because the flat iron may be the best argument against backstrap supremacy.
It brings nearly the same tenderness, more texture, and a deeper, richer venison flavor. It develops a beautiful crust over live fire and carries itself with the confidence of a cut that doesn’t need marketing.
The Denver Steak: The Cult Favorite
Every food scene has one. The band nobody listened to ten years ago. The neighborhood restaurant that suddenly has a waiting list. The bottle of whiskey everyone ignored until it became impossible to find. That’s the Denver steak. Thanks, Beef Checkoff Program of 2009, for enlightening us all.
Few hunters know it exists. Fewer still remove it intentionally. Yet among butchers and meat nerds, it has quietly developed a devoted following.
The Denver steak has something rare in venison: character.
It isn’t trying to be elegant. It isn’t trying to be refined. It just shows up with great texture, excellent grilling qualities, and enough flavor to make people wonder why they’ve spent so much time talking about backstrap. I love it.
The Sirloin Steak: The Reliable Veteran
The sirloin steak doesn’t inspire much excitement. It never has, but it should.
It’s not glamorous. Nobody hangs a photo over the fireplace of them proudly holding a sirloin primal section. Nobody tells stories about the first sirloin steak they ever ate. And yet, year after year, it quietly delivers.
The sirloin steak comes from two neighboring cuts, the top sirloin and the sirloin tip. It has chew. It has a deeper venison flavor than the loin. It thrives over high heat and rewards cooks who know when to stop before crossing into overcooked territory. The sirloin isn’t trying to win a popularity contest. It just keeps showing up and doing the job.
The Tri-Tip: The Western Outlaw
The tri-tip feels like it wandered into this conversation from somewhere west of the Rockies. It’s the cut that shows up wearing dusty boots and asking why everyone is making such a big deal about the backstrap. The venison tri-tip comes as a small cut with big bravado, often needing a pair to make a meal.
Slightly less tender? Sure.
More flavorful? Quite possibly.
The tri-tip rewards patience. Reverse-seared, smoked, or cooked over hardwood coals, it becomes the kind of steak that makes people stop talking for a minute. Not because it’s delicate, but because it isn’t.
The Heart: The Revolutionary
The heart doesn’t want the throne. The heart wants to burn the monarchy down!
Every discussion about the best steak on a deer assumes we’re talking about muscles hunters already recognize as steaks. Then somebody serves a perfectly seared deer heart, and suddenly the conversation changes. People’s eyes open a bit wider.
It has none of the refinement of the backstrap and absolutely none of its reputation. Yet it possesses something many cuts spend their entire lives chasing: Flavor.
The heart is intensely bold with rich flavors, great minerality, and arguably the hardest-working muscle in the animal. The heart isn’t here to win. It’s here to force another uncomfortable question: “Does the best-flavored and most memorable cut have to be considered ‘meat’?” I bet you remember your first heart.
What If We’ve Been Saving the Wrong Cut?
After all this, you might be expecting me to declare a winner. Maybe I crown the flat iron, the sirloin steak, or perhaps some underdog cut hiding deep in the shoulder. That would miss the point.
The backstrap deserves its reputation. Few hunters have ever regretted pulling a perfectly cooked backstrap from the grill. The real question isn’t whether the backstrap is overrated.
The real question is why we’ve spent so much time celebrating one cut while overlooking so many others.
For generations, hunters have been taught to treat the backstrap and tenderloins like treasure. More poachers have been caught taking those cuts of meat than anything else aside from antlers (we will unpack that one later). Meanwhile, shoulders are destined for the grind pile, sirloins are cut without much thought, and lesser-known steaks disappear into burger because nobody realized they were there.
Imagine applying that same logic to a beef carcass. A butcher who saved only the filet mignon and ground everything else would be laughed out of the shop. Yet that’s essentially what many of us have done with venison.
The more deer I butcher, the less interested I become in asking which cut is best. The better question is what each cut does best in certain applications. A backstrap steak and a flat iron steak aren’t competitors so much as specialists. One delivers elegance. The other delivers character. A sirloin steak offers an entirely different experience. Even the heart has something to teach us about flavor.
The greatest luxury a hunter has isn’t access to the most celebrated cut on the animal. It’s access to all of them.
Maybe the problem isn’t that backstrap has received too much attention. Maybe it’s that everything else hasn’t received enough. If there’s a lesson hidden inside every deer, it’s this: the more closely you look, the more value you find. Not just in the backstrap, but in the shoulders, the sirloin, the shanks, the neck, the heart, and every other piece that makes up the animal.
The best steak on a deer? That depends on what you value.
Undoubtedly, the most overlooked steak on a deer is probably the one you haven’t tried yet.
These ideas are great …. But a reference with a picture showing where they are located would be a help.
Yes! We are about to publish a book called “Cooking by Cut” that will do exactly that!
Kewl !!!