Beyond the Blend: Tagged Out Backstrap Blend
Somebody in your camp is still putting garlic salt on backstrap. Tagged Out is for everybody else.
Backstrap is lean, it cooks fast, and it gives you almost no margin. Most seasonings make that harder. The sweet ones scorch before the center is up to temperature. The heavy smoke blends shout over a cut that does not need shouting at. Tagged Out was built for wild game specifically, which means garlic, toasted onion and pepper doing the work while bell pepper and tomato round the edges instead of masking anything.
Flavor Profile
Lean red meat has less fat to carry flavor across the palate, so a blend for wild game has to bring depth rather than volume. This one is built on savory and umami instead of heat and sugar, which is why it reads as more of the meat rather than as something sitting on it.
Garlic: The foundation, and the one ingredient nobody argues about on red meat. It browns alongside the crust and turns sweet rather than sharp.
Toasted Onion: Not the same as regular onion. Toasting drives off the raw bite and leaves something darker and almost caramelized, which is what lets it stand up next to a hard sear instead of disappearing into it.
Worcestershire: The depth charge. Worcestershire is a fermented ingredient carrying vinegar, molasses and tamarind, and it is a classic pairing with beef and venison for the same reason anchovy is a classic pairing with lamb. It adds savory weight that tastes like the meat rather than like a seasoning.
Red and Green Bell Pepper: Mild, sweet and vegetal rather than hot. They give the blend a chophouse quality, closer to a steakhouse rub than to a barbecue one.
Tomato and Green Onion: Both add acidity and brightness in small amounts, which keeps a savory-heavy blend from reading flat on a lean cut.
How to Use Tagged Out
Backstrap and loin. Season heavy, get your heat high, and move fast. There is almost no fat in this cut to buy you time, so the margin between right and overdone is narrow. A reverse sear on the smoker is the most forgiving method if you want edge to edge color.
Steaks and roasts. Works the same on elk, antelope, wild hog and bison. On a roast, season the day before and let it sit uncovered in the refrigerator so the surface dries and the salt moves inward.
Burgers and ground. Mix it in rather than only seasoning the outside. Ground venison needs added fat regardless, and our fat ratio guide has the ranges.
Beef. Anything built for lean venison has no trouble with a ribeye. It is a genuinely good steak seasoning that happens to have been designed for harder meat.
Every prime cut, every species, every season.
More guides, recipes and gear for the whole season live on our Hunting and Processing page.
