How to cook rabbit and hare
Information for rabbit and hare in our free cooking ingredients collection.
Rabbit and hare
Rabbit meat is often compared to chicken, but it has a sweeter, milder taste. Rabbit is also a little leaner than chicken. Three ounces of roasted rabbit has 7 grams of fat, whereas the dark meat of a roasted chicken has 8 grams and the white meat 3 grams, skin removed.
Rabbit meat for the table can be from either wild or domesticated animals. Farm-bred rabbits are somewhat fatter and blander in flavor than their free-roaming counterparts. They also have a fine-textured flesh that is almost all white meat, unlike their wilder counterparts. A mature rabbit weighs between 3 and 5 pounds, an amount that will serve four people.
More than double the size of its rabbit relative, the hare can weigh as much as 12 to 14 pounds. Hares have longer ears than rabbits, a notched lip, and powerful hind legs. Whether wild or domesticated, hares have a darker flesh and heartier flavor than rabbits.
How to cook rabbit and hare
Fresh and frozen rabbit is available dressed either whole or cut into pieces. Young rabbits weigh around 2 pounds and should have a light-colored flesh. They are considered the most tender. When cooking aged or wild rabbit, use moist heat to cook it (such as stewing, braising, or marinating) to tenderize and whiten the meat. Wild hare, also called jackrabbit and snowshoe rabbit, generally needs marinating to tenderize it before cooking. This process also whitens the meat. Young animals (1 year or less) can usually be roasted, but older animals are best cooked with moist-heat methods, such as slow cooking in a casserole or stew.
Serving suggestions
In general, recipes for rabbit, especially young rabbit, are similar to those for chicken. French and Italian recipes use rabbit with excellent results. Rabbit is traditionally served in sauces to minimize a flavor that can be intense.
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