Smoked Doves Recipe - Smoked Guajillo Doves | Hank Shaw (2024)

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Smoked doves are easy to make, versatile and are good hot or cold. What’s not to love?

There are two origins to this dish. The first is that I’d been meaning to smoke doves for ages. After all, they are a Labor Day tradition in much of the country, and once you have your annual fix of dove poppers, you need some other recipes — preferably those that can be done outside.

Second, as many of you know I’ve been studying Mexican food a lot lately, and I came across a curious dish of stewed doves in a guajillo sauce in a Spanish-language cookbook that covers the Mexican state of Sonora. And, well, Sonora is just on the other side of Arizona, where I hunt doves a lot. Bingo!

I don’t generally like stewed doves. Overcooked dove tastes like liver to me, and not in a good way. But if you cure and smoke your doves first, then just bathe them in your sauce, whatever that sauce may be, you have a fantastic compromise.

Making smoked doves is easy: Put 1/4 cup of kosher salt (I use Diamond Crystal) into each quart of cool water, along with a teaspoon of Instacure No. 1. This is curing salt, and you use it when smoking meats for food safety and to give meats that characteristic rosy color. You can get it in butcher shops and online. And you can skip it, but I prefer the flavor with the curing salt.

Incidentally, I use plucked doves here. It is super easy to pluck doves, and we have a video here on how to do it.

Submerge your doves in the this brine, in the refrigerator, for 12 to 24 hours, then briefly rinse and drain them. In this state they can sit in the fridge for a day or more.

Arrange your doves breast side up and smoke them over the wood of your choice — mesquite or oak is mine — for about 2 hours over low heat. I use a Traeger, and set it at 170°F. This gives you enough smoke time and you won’t incinerate your doves.

If you want to sauce your smoked doves, all you need to do is either paint on the sauce in the last hour, or toss the finished doves in the sauce, wrap in foil and heat in a 350°F oven for 25 minutes or so.

OTHER GREAT DOVE RECIPES

I have25 dove recipes hereon Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, ranging frombacon-wrapped dovestodove enchiladas. Some great Labor Day grilling or barbecue options include:

• Grilled doves Cajun style. Super easy with a Louisiana flair.
• Grilled doves with an Arizona desert inspired barbecue sauce.
• Slow and lowbarbecued doves.

No doves? This dove recipe works with pigeons or squab, teal, woodco*ck, rails, quail, or yes, even Cornish game hens.

If you liked this recipe, please leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ rating and a comment below; I’d love to hear how everything went. If you’re on Instagram, share a picture and tag me athuntgathercook.