Pheasant Bacon Ranch Casserole

Our annual end-of-season hunt camps are always an interesting culinary adventure. My buddies hunt a bit of everything from all over the country and everyone brings a few packs of various wild game meat to camp.

Turn your pheasant breasts into a full meal by combining them with potatoes and lots of bacon. Image by author

This year, my pal Marty brought several whole pheasants. Since there always seems to be enough bacon to feed an army on hand, I used some of it to make a pheasant, bacon, and ranch casserole.

The recipe starts with skinned pheasants. Use the breast for this dish and save the legs and thighs for something else.

I made this one in a cast iron 13x9 Lodge casserole dish, but a cast iron skillet will work just fine. Most of our camp cooking is done on various pellet grills and smokers, so that is what we cooked with. If you don’t have a smoker or pellet grill handy, you can cook this one in an oven.

Line a cast iron casserole dish or skillet with bacon, leaving the tag ends hanging over to cover.

Start by lining your dish of choice with uncooked bacon, leaving plenty of tag end hanging over the edge to fold over the top to cover everything.

This recipe uses the pheasant breast. Save the legs and thighs for another dish. Use a meat mallet to pound the breasts flat. That both increases the surface area of the meat, making it go farther, and tenderizes the meat.

Place the pheasant breasts inside zip top bags and pound flat with a meat mallet.

To make the dish an entire meal, I add thin sliced potatoes above and below the pheasant. Sandwiched between the potato layers are pheasant meat, cheese, and ranch dressing.

Slice the potatoes thin so that they fully cook without overcooking the bacon.

Seasoning on this one is up to you. I used Kinder Buttery Garlic blend, but use whatever you like.

Start with the layered bacon. Save a few slices to cover the top when you fold everything up. Once you have the bacon in the skillet or dish, add a layer of thin sliced potatoes. I’m a big proponent of seasoning every layer of a dish as I go. That goes for this one as well. Layer the potatoes over the bacon and season it with the garlic herb blend or whatever seasoning you prefer.

From there, layer over some pheasant breast that you have pounded flat. Go ahead and season the pheasant as well. Next comes some ranch dressing. Use as much or as little as you like. After that, pile on some shredded cheese. I use Monterey Jack, but choose your favorite.

Layer the pheasant breasts, ranch dressing and cheese, then layer on more potatoes.

Once you have the ranch dressing and the cheese on, go ahead and add some more sliced potatoes.

Take the extra slices of bacon that you held back and lay over the center of the casserole. Next, fold the bacon slice ends up and over the top of the dish, enclosing the filling entirely in bacon.

Fold the bacon over the top, fully encasing the pheasant and potatoes.

Place the dish onto a pellet grill or in the oven at 325 degrees. Cook for 90 to 120 minutes or until the potatoes are completely done and the bacon is browned and crisp.

Cook until the bacon is crisp and the potatoes and pheasant are fully cooked through.

Once the dish is done, drain the excess bacon grease into a dish. Don’t throw it away. Strain out the solids and keep it in a jar. That is culinary gold for future recipes.

After the excess grease has been drained, you can turn the entire casserole out onto a cutting board or slice and serve directly from the cast iron. Cut the dish into squares or wedges and serve as a main dish.

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