Oven Roasted Quail: Quick Romantic Dinner (2024)

Forget the restaurant. This is fine dining at home - a romantic dinner anytime! Add this red velvet martini to set the mood.

If you can make chicken you know how to make quail!

🗝️ Key takeaways

This easy quail recipe gives you in a gorgeous, restaurant worthy dish in under 30 minutes!

The glaze is sweet, citrusy, tangy and it makes the skin crispy. The meat is buttery-sweet and just melts in your mouth with every bite.

The grits are perfectly creamy with an earthy saltiness from the Camembert cheese.

I toasted the pecans almost to the scorched state - they are crunchy with a little smoky bitterness that I love. When everything is taken together and eaten in one bite then washed down with a sip of the chardonnay it's just ... wonderful.

Perfect for a cozy evening in front of a crackling fire or for a romantic Valentine's Day dinner.

🧾 Ingredients

• whole quail
• orange
• butter
• salt & pepper
• fresh rosemary
• balsamic vinegar
• chardonnay
• lemon
• heavy cream
• quick cooking grits
• Camembert cheese
• pecans

🔪 Instructions

Note: This is an overview of the instructions. The full instructions are in the green recipe card below.

• Defrost quail if it's frozen.
• Preheat the oven to 500F.
• Truss the bird according to the instructions below.
• Place a small sliver of orange and a sprig of rosemary in the cavity of each bird.
• Brush with melted butter.
• Sprinkle with salt and pepper.
• Roast in a 500F degree oven for 10 minutes.
• Remove from the oven and brush with the glaze (recipe in recipe card).
• Return to the oven for 3 to 5 minutes.
• Remove from the oven and set aside to rest.

How to make Camembert cheese grits

🍗 How to truss a quail

Trussing a quail keeps the bird shaped nicely and ensures that it will brown evenly.

1. Cut off 16 inches of kitchen twine for each quail.
2. Start with the bird breast side up.
3. Cross the middle of the string over the end of the legs and flip the quail, bringing the two ends to the front of the bird. Make sure that the string holds the wings tight against the body.
4. Make a knot and turn the bird back over, breast side up.

🥫 How to store leftovers

This easy quail recipe is best eaten fresh from the oven. Leftovers should be covered and refrigerated promptly. They'll be fine for 3-4 days.

Since the birds were frozen I wouldn't refreeze any part of this dish. And really, it's so easy to make that there's no reason to. If fresh you can freeze them for up to 3 months.

💭 Things to know

Expert tip: The best way to cook quail is to roast it at a high temperature for a short period of time. This recipe calls for the quail to be roasted at 500F for 15 minutes and then left to rest. It won't be quite done when you take it out of the oven but will finish cooking during the resting time. This keeps the meat juicy.

• You can skip the grits if you want and serve this with fluffy, buttered rice.
• Don't overcook this small bird is overcooking which dries the meat out. Done right (and by right I mean my way) the succulent meat of this little game bird will be buttery-melt-in-your-mouth-omg tender.
• When roasted quail is done the meat is still going to be a little pink.
• No need to marinate but if you really want to you can either brine it for an hour or marinate it in a little olive oil and orange juice with a few slices of fresh ginger and maybe some fresh thyme. Don't leave it longer than an hour - the fibers in the meat can break down and get mushy. Ew.
• I like to put a little slice of citrus or fresh thyme (or both) in the cavity just to give it a little more flavor. Rosemary is also good for this.
• Salt it a little more than you think you should. The salt will balance out the sweetness of the meat. Mine were a tad under-salted for most of my family's tastes.
• I truss the birds to maintain their shape. You don't have to.
• Keep in mind that grits are bland and they'll diminish the flavor of anything you add to them. The Camembert makes them creamier and milder than my Cheddar Cheese Grits. Get a Camembert that's good and ripe or the flavor will be lost completely.
• Of course, you know the old adage, don't use a wine for cooking that you wouldn't drink!

👩‍🍳 FAQs

Here are the questions I am most frequently asked about this recipe.

• This buttermilk-bined roast chicken is delicious for Sunday dinner.
• Cranberry chicken is sweet and tangy and absolutely gorgeous!
• Apricot chicken thighs are done in the slow cooker and they come out moist, juicy, and delicous with a sticky sweet sauce.

Serve with

Quail recipes are perfect for romantic dinners because they look so fancy but they're so simple! That's why this works for family and friends kind of casual dinners, too.

Finish the meal with something citrus and light. Use this menu for inspiration!

• Stuffed mushrooms - get some umami on this menu!
• Glazed Oven Roasted Quail with Camembert cheese grits
• Romaine salad with a vinaigrette made with the same balsamic vinegar you used for the glaze - some grapefruit and orange sections with the membrane removed is really nice here.
• Sourdough bread
• Butter for bread (top with a little finishing salt - I like espresso salt with this)
• Key Lime Hatch Chile Gelato or this Meyer Lemon Bundt Cake

How to eat quail

Roasted quail, no matter how gorgeous it looks, is not a pretentious dish - especially when it still has the bones in it.

If you're at home just eat it with your fingers. Pull the legs and wings off first - seriously, a knife and fork are too clunky here.

If you're at a restaurant it's usually got most of the bones removed - or choose something else on the menu.

📞 The last word

Quail may seem like an exotic dish to some of y'all but here in Texas it's pretty familiar as a game meat.

As a general rule, I don't care for the game but quail has a meaty, sweet flavor without the off-putting "gamey" flavor that I find in duck and other game birds.

It's so easy - give it a try!

If you click on the number of servings in the recipe card you can adjust the measurements up or down for the exact number of servings you need.

If you love this recipe please comment below and give it 5 stars!⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

📖 Recipe

Originally published December 1, 2017. Last updated November 19, 2023 for better images, instructions, and more information.

✍🏻 A note from Marye...

I know y'all don't always like the stories bloggers tell so when I have one I try to put it at the very bottom so you can read or skip as you like.

Creating dishes with kaleidoscopes of flavors and textures is something I enjoy. I don't mind throwing out my brilliant ideas that turned out to be not-so-brilliant and I love when they work out as well as this one did.

I'm the gal that will talk to you all day long about spiritual things, nano-technology, and whether or not the Loch Ness Monster is real but gets tongue-tied at a party where she's expected to maintain a conversation that consists of small talk.

In other words, I like to put my whole self into anything I do. I've always thought of it as theta da!of my life.

So when I was sipping a glass of chardonnay I started thinking about my vacation in France.

Then I had a daydream of being at a bed and breakfast in Normandy and what that would be like. Then I thought about opening a French bed and breakfast in Texas and what the menu would be like.

At the same time I was texting with my bestie and told her I was thinking about making quail. We brainstormed back and forth and all of a sudden I knew what I wanted to do -

Oven-roasted quail, glazed with balsamic vinegar and chardonnay reduction and served on cheese grits made with Camembert cheese. Toasted pecans add the garnish and sprigs of rosemary add color and a nice scent.

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