Perfect Grilled Duck

Nature of the dish

Something about throwing a hunk of meat over flames satisfies a primal desire in all of us. Grilled duck is often an overlooked recipe but absolutely deserves a spot on every hunters grill. This dish is simple to accomplish and is impressive on the plate.

Duck is best served rare or medium rare. If well done is kind of your thing, its probably for the best that you leave this recipe alone until you reconsider.

Ingredients list

SERVS 2-3

  • Puddle duck breast - skin on or butterflied (Mallard, gadwall, widgeon, teal, pintail, woodies)

  • Salt to taste

Items you will need

  • knife

  • cutting board

  • grill

How to make

  1. Start the grill. We want it pretty hot.

  2. Take your skin-on breast and pat dry. If you want to see how we take the skin with the breast, check out our duck cleaning tips.

  3. Place breast skin side up and score skin in a grid pattern no bigger than 1 inch. When we score the skin, we are not cutting through to the meat, just cutting into the fat under the skin to help crisp up the skin.

  4. Salt both sides of the duck.

  5. Put skin side down on the grill bigger ducks will take 4 minutes, smaller ducks about 3. If the flames are licking up and touching the duck, don't panic! This can actually help crisp the skin if not overdone.

  6. Flip duck to meat side and cook for 90 seconds.

  7. Flip back to the skin side for another 30 seconds.

  8. Let rest for a few minutes and plate.