One of my favorite cuisines to cook is Greek. It is fresh, healthy, and pretty easy to make. This Baked Greek Pheasant is just that, delicious and nutritious.
I have been searching for different ways to cook up pheasant that leave the meat juicy and tender. Marinating the pheasant in yogurt allows the lactic acid to breakdown the meat’s connective proteins and muscle fibers. This, coupled with drizzling it with olive oil and covering it with foil, allows this dish to stay tender even though pheasant is a very lean meat.
Pairing this with pita, tzatziki sauce, pickled onions and lemon feta orzo completes this dish. I have linked my favorite homemade instant pot pita bread and the easiest pickled onion recipe.
I hope you enjoy this dish as much as us!
Baked Greek Pheasant
Ingredients
- 2 pheasants quartered; skinless
Yogurt Marinade
- 1 C full fat plain Greek yogurt
- 2 T extra virgin olive oil
- 1 T fresh lemon juice
- 1 T fresh minced garlic
- 1 T oregano dried
- 2 T minced shallot if you can't find a shallot, use yellow onion
- 1/2 tsp dill weed dried
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 1/4 tsp salt
Baking Needs
- 4 T extra virgin olive oil
- foil
Serve with
- pita
- Tzatziki Sauce
- pink pickled onions
- Lemon Feta Orzo
- feta
Instructions
Marinade
- Clean off any remaining feathers and remove any visible pellets.
- In a large ziplock bag, add all of the marinade ingredients and combine. I do this by zipping it up and squishing the ingredients around until combined.
- Add pheasants to the ziplock bag and drench in the marinade by same process above.
- Refrigerate for 3-24 hours.
Bake
- Preheat oven to 400°F.
- Line a cookie sheet with foil.
- Remove pheasants from ziplock and shake off any excess yogurt marinade. A thin coating is all that is needed.
- Place on the cookie sheet.
- Drizzle with olive oil.
- Cover the cookie sheet with foil. This will help lock in moisture.
- Bake for 15 minutes. Check the temperature of your pheasant.
- If any have reached 165°F, remove to a plate and cover with foil. This will allow the pheasant to continue to cook while not drying out.
- If the pheasant has not reached 165°F, remove foil covering and cook an additional 5-10 minutes. Legs take longer to cook, but as they reach temperature, remove and add to foil covered plate.
Serve
- Serve with orzo, tzatziki, pickled onions, feta, etc. Enjoy!
