This is the best bear roast you will ever make. The meat braises in a delicious and healthy cooking liquid that makes it fall-apart tender…and simple to do.

bear roast being torn apart with forks on a black serving platter

The first time I ever had bear roast I was really skeptical. I mean, can you even eat bear? I thought it would be fatty and weird…boy, I couldn’t have been more wrong. If you’re skeptical of wild game, but love beef, bear is probably the most palatable type of meat for you to try!

I’ve mentioned before that I didn’t grow up eating wild game. When I met my husband, Jared, I suddenly found myself with pounds and pounds of venison on hand each year and I had no idea how to work with it. Fast forward 5 years and I now work with venison, elk and bear meat more than beef and pork and I’m publishing my first cookbook – all about cooking with venison (click here to get on my waitlist to get the book!).

Anyway, if you have a freezer full of bear meat like we do…I’m sure you’re wondering what to do with all of that meat. This bear roast recipe is the PERFECT cozy staple to add to your meal rotation. It feeds a crowd, makes great leftovers, and surprisingly – everyone loves it. My dad even served some at his office and it was gone in seconds!

How do you cook bear meat?

There are a lot of rumors that go around about cooking with bear. Some people think you can’t cook with it because it isn’t food safe, some people think it tastes fishy and others think it’s tough. Here’s the scoop:

Bear is perfectly safe to cook with, it just needs to be handled with care in the field, frozen quickly and cooked to 165F.

The best way to put it – work with bear meat like you work with poultry. Bears do consume other animals and grub, so it is possible for them to carry parasites. So, you want to make sure you have a nice, clean shot on the animal and that it’s quickly moved from processing to vacuum sealed freezer bags and frozen as soon as possible.

When you cook it, it needs to internally reach 165F (like chicken and pork) to ensure food safety. But really, it’s just like woking with a chicken breast, so there’s nothing out of the ordinary to worry about.

Bear meat isn’t tough, but it isn’t good for steaks

Cooking bear so that it’s well-done brings me to another point. A lot of people think bear meat is tough because they’ve had well-done bear seaks. If you ask me, no steak is good well done. It’s tough, rubbery and dry.

Bear meat is best for roasts and braised dishes (like spicy pulled taco meat – YUM!) or making into ground meat. Game like venison and elk are safe to eat rare (or even raw for carpaccio or tartare if really fresh) so it’s common for people to assume the same about bear. But, because bear meat needs to be well done it’s best to get a lot of ground meat and roasts.

roast in a slow cooker with braising liquid

Is it hard to get bear roast tender?

No! Because bear is a fattier meat, it just takes a longer cooking time to melt fat and sinew to result in a fall-apart tender roast. I think the slow cooker actually does the best job, so that’s what I’m using below.

You can, of course, use your oven to roast bear. You can follow the recipe below but roast the bear in a covered dish at 300F for about 4 hours.

You’ll know the meat is done when it shreds apart with a fork. If it isn’t there yet, be patient and let it cook more! I promise you’ll be blown away by this easy recipe and you’ll be making it all of the time!

Have lots of bear meat on hand? Make sure you try out my Bear Chili. I think it’s my favorite of all time!