What Are Caribou steaks and How Can I Use Them?

Wondering what to do with caribou steaks? This guide covers how to pick them, cook them, store them, and swap them, plus 7 recipes to put them to work.

Key Points

Lean steaks from caribou, the wild North American reindeer; clean, slightly sweet flavor.
Almost no marbling, so sear fast and hot and stop at medium-rare.
Sear ¾ inch steaks 2 to 3 minutes per side, pull at 130°F (54°C).
A pan sauce or marinade replaces the fat the lean meat lacks.
Venison, elk, and farmed reindeer are interchangeable swaps in any recipe.

What are caribou steaks?

Caribou steaks are loin and leg cuts of caribou, the North American wild reindeer of the Arctic and subarctic. The meat is a lean, dark, fine-grained red meat with a clean, slightly sweet flavor and far less gaminess than most people expect.

A caribou steak eats much like a venison or elk steak: lean and tender, rich without being heavy. It is a staple protein across northern Canada and Alaska, where hunters share the meat through the long winter.

The defining trait is leanness, with almost no marbling, which is the one fact that should guide how you cook it.

Cooking Caribou Steaks

Caribou steak is built for fast, high-heat searing and almost nothing else. With so little fat, dry heat past medium-rare squeezes out moisture and the steak turns dry and liver-flavored. Hot and quick is the whole strategy.

Get a heavy pan or grill ripping hot, then sear the oiled steak 2 to 3 minutes a side for a cut about ¾ inch (2 cm) thick. Pull it at an internal 130°F (54°C) for medium-rare, then rest it five minutes so the juices redistribute.

A pan sauce covers the lack of fat. Caribou Steaks with Whisky Sauce and Caribou Steaks with Green Peppercorn Sauce both sear the meat and build a rich sauce in the pan to spoon over the lean slices. Grilled Caribou Steaks lean on a marinade and basting instead.

Thinner or tougher steaks suit other tricks. Mustard Fried Caribou coats the meat before a quick fry, while leftover or trimmed steak slices thin and dries into Chinese Jerky.

Pairing and Common Mistakes

Caribou pairs with deep, sweet, peppery flavors that stand in for the missing fat. Red wine, whisky, juniper, green peppercorn, mushrooms, dried berries, and a finishing knob of butter all suit it. That butter on a resting steak is doing real work.

The cardinal mistake is overcooking. There is no fat to keep a caribou steak juicy past medium-rare, so a thermometer beats guesswork; one extra minute is the difference between tender and dry.

The second is skipping the marinade on leaner or older cuts. An acidic marinade with oil tenderizes the meat and adds the moisture and fat the steak lacks on its own. A simple steak sauce, as in A-1 Caribou Steak, does similar work after cooking.

Substitutes

Venison and elk steaks are the closest swaps and behave identically: lean, dark, fast-searing, and interchangeable in any caribou steak recipe. Reindeer, the same species farmed in northern Europe, is effectively the same meat.

Moose and bison steaks also stand in well, lean and clean with a slightly deeper flavor. For a supermarket option, a lean grass-fed beef sirloin or tenderloin works in any of these recipes; just cook it to the same medium-rare and expect a richer, less clean taste.

Buying and Storing

Caribou is rarely sold commercially, so most steaks come from a hunter; farmed reindeer steak is the closest thing in stores. Good caribou steak is deep red, firm, and nearly free of marbling, with white sinew trimmed away and no sour smell.

Refrigerate fresh caribou steaks at 40°F (4°C) or below and cook within three to five days. The lean meat freezes very well: wrap each steak airtight and use within eight to twelve months, thawing in the fridge.

For safety, cook caribou steaks (a whole-muscle cut) to 145°F (63°C) with a three-minute rest, though many cooks prefer the medium-rare 130°F (54°C) target for tenderness and accept the tradeoff. Because it is wild game, handle it carefully and cook any ground caribou to 160°F (71°C).