Cooking Rabbit: Recipes and Tips

Cooked rabbit is extremely popular in Canadian, French and other European cuisines because of the animal’s small size. It’s a common backyard meat source, like chicken, and it’s easy to trap wild.

How to find rabbit meat

Domestic rabbit will always be best when sourced locally from a sustainable and humane farm. Use Local Harvest to find rabbit meat for sale in your area. If you find that no one locally is raising it, look in the freezer section of your supermarket. A national brand — Pel-Freez — sells fryer-broilers; I also found a plain-wrap version in my local market. The cost was around $15 for a whole, frozen rabbit.  

Prepare rabbit meat for cooking

If you obtained a frozen rabbit, defrost it overnight in the refrigerator (a whole rabbit will take 12 to 16 hours; pieces will take 4 to 9 hours). If you don’t have that kind of time, place the frozen rabbit in a plastic bag and immerse it in cold water. Rinse it under cold water and pat dry.

Familiarize yourself with how to cut up the carcass; the usual cutting pattern involves the two hind legs, the two front legs, the shoulders, and the saddle, split in two. Sharp kitchen shears or a meat cleaver work perfectly for the job. Once you have the rabbit cut into sections, you’re ready to start cooking.