Grilled Duck Breast simply seasoned with salt, pepper garlic, criss cross sliced and grilled on a gas grill to medium rare and served on a bao bun. Indeed, you read that right. We cooked duck to medium rare because duck should be cooked like beef, not chicken. I explain more down below.

Medium Rare Duck?

I know, I know. The idea of cooking any bird to medium rare is hard to get behind.

Although you gotta wrap your head around this one.

Do You Cook Duck Breast Like Steak?

Absolutely. Duck breast is deep red meat that looks much more like lean steak than chicken or turkey. Sear the duck breast on each side and serve once it hits medium rare. That’s it. Keep it simple.

Here is a pic of the seasoned duck breast on the grill at a bit of a distance.

Tell me, does that look like chicken/turkey or steak?

And a little closer:

If you are interested in other wild game recipes, check out this deer recipe (also cooked like steak) or this bacon wrapped quail bomb (not cooked like steak)

Grilled Duck Breast Ingredients

• Duck Breasts
• SPG Seasoning (salt, pepper and garlic)
• Bao Buns (optional)
• Hoisin Sauce (optional)
• Toasted sesame seeds (optional)
• Fresh Asian basil (optional)
• Edamame (optional)

Where to Get Duck Breast:

The hardest part about a duck breast recipe will be finding the duck breast. We found this awesome place just outside of St. Louis called Fresh Pasture Farms. Sadly, they don’t ship. But if you are in the St. Louis area, I highly recommend them.

Grab some duck eggs too, because they are positively amazing. Be warned, the duck eggs will ruin all other eggs for you.

Prepare the Duck Breast for the Grill

Give the skin a criss cross cut with a sharp knife, being careful not to slice more than a couple millimeters deep.

Season both sides with SPG Seasoning

Before we show the step by step of preparing the duck breast, light the grill and get the grill grates screaming hot. We’re talking 450F+. North of 500F would be even better.

I decided to trim away a little of the skin of the duck breast to clean it up a bit. In the future I wouldn’t do that.

The remaining skin shrank up a bit more than I liked:

That and the fat was absolutely delicious.

Thus, trimming the duck is optional and actually discouraged

See, I left a bunch of flavor on the cutting board.

Although, if you do trim it, season it and grill it for some crispy snacks.

Then, criss cross cut the skin.

This will allow the skin to crisp up faster and gives the duck more surface area which is the tastiest part:

Criss cross cut duck breast

Now season both sides with the SPG rub.

And more photographic proof that this is red meat, not poultry:

Grilled Duck Breast

Prepare the grill for medium high to high heat as well as two zone grilling – thus, one side of the grill has no direct heat. Set the duck skin side down on the medium high grill, which in this case is my Everdure Furnace gas grill which has these awesome grill grates (that make really cool grill marks) and includes a griddle plate (think plancha):

This is where duck differs from steak. Steak doesn’t have a thick layer of fat on one side.

While it only takes 2-3 minutes to get char on steak, it will take closer to double that for duck.

Basically the fat has to lose all the moisture before it can brown and that skin is loaded with moisture.

So expect a 6-8 minute sear to get the skin to look like this:

Once the skin has some nice browning and is a little crispy, flip it over.

Truth be told, the skin of my duck breast could’ve been browned a little more

Grilled duck breast flipped over:

I like my duck closer to rare so I was happy at 120F with mine, but you could easily go to 125F-130F:

Furthermore, if you need your duck cooked more, slide it over to the side of the grill with no direct heat and close the lid to bake the breast to the desired doneness.

One interesting aspect of this cook is how much the duck breast thickened up on the grill.

Thus, here are a couple pics of the cooked duck resting on the cutting board next to one of the duck breasts inside the vac pack:

Indeed this phenomena totally reminds me of the teres major steak that does the same thing.

Then, let the grilled duck rest for 3-5 minutes:

Finally, sliced:

Indeed this can be eaten like a steak just as it is:

Additionally, you can add slices of the grilled duck to a bao bun, with some hoisin, fresh basil and toasted sesame seeds with a side of edamame:

Grilled Duck Breast Recap:

As discussed earlier, duck breast is grilled steak with an added bonus of a crispy layer of duck fat on one side. Although it’s leaner than steak so it’s not as good as a well marbled steak but the crispy skin on one side makes up for a lot of that gap.

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Recipe Card:

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Grilled Duck Breast

Grilled Duck Breast simply seasoned with salt, pepper garlic, criss cross sliced and grilled to medium rare and served on a bao bun

Course Barbecue, BBQ, Duck, Entree, Main Course

Cuisine American, American Fare, Barbecue, BBQ, Duck, Grilled Duck, Grilled Duck Breast

Keyword Duck, Duck Breast, Everdure, Everdure Furnace, Gas Grill, Grilled Duck, Grilled Duck Breast, Medium Rare, Medium Rare Duck, Medium Rare Duck Breast, SPG, SPG Rub, SPG Seasoning

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Cook Time 15 minutes minutes

Servings 2 People

Ingredients

• Duck breasts
• SPG Seasoning Salt, pepper and garlic
• Bao buns Optional
• Hoisin sauce Optional
• Toasted sesame seeds Optional
• Fresh Asian basil Optional
• Edamame Optional

Instructions

• Prepare the grill for two zone high heat cooking at 450F+ degrees at the grill grate, but leaving one side of the grill with no heat.
• Carve a criss cross pattern in the fat of the duck breast being careful not to go all the way through the fat to the duck meat below. Season both sides with SPG seasoning
• Place the duck breast fat side down on the hot side of the grill. Sear for 6-8 minutes rotating once about 90 degrees. Flip and sear on the other side for about 3-4 minutes, again rotating 90 degrees once.
• Once the duck is seared on both sides it will be rare to medium rare. If you would like it a little more done, move the duck breast over to the side with no heat and close the lid to bake to your desired doneness.
• Remove from the grill and allow to rest for 3-4 minutes. Slice and serve as is, or add to a bao bun along with the rest of the ingredients except the edamame which isa wonderful side to this entree.

Video

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Author information

Scott Thomas

Scott Thomas, the Original Grillin’ Fool, was sent off to college with a suitcase and a grill where he overcooked, undercooked and burned every piece of meat he could find. After thousands of failures, and quite a few successes, nearly two decades later he started a website to show step by step, picture by picture, foolproof instructions on how to make great things out of doors so that others don’t have to repeat the mistakes he’s made on the grill.

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