Abstract This paper proposes a comprehensive control strategy for a battery energy storage system (BESS) participating in primary frequency modulation (FM) while considering the state of charge (SOC) recovery. On the one hand, when the frequency fluctuations are outside the dead zone of the FM, variable coefficient virtual sag control and variable coefficient virtual inertia control are coordinated for more accurate primary FM. Also, an assisted FM strategy is proposed, where the temporal alignment of assisted FM is determined by the regional segmentation of the frequency deviation and SOC, and it enables the BESS to recover SOC concurrently during its involvement in primary FM. On the other hand, when the frequency fluctuations are inside the dead zone of the FM, typical S‐type functions are deployed to dynamically establish the mutual constraints relationships of SOC recovery demand coefficient and frequency deviation. Subsequently, the recovery control coefficients are derived, and accordingly, a SOC recovery strategy is proposed. Finally, simulation results verify the efficacy of the proposed control strategy in the grid primary FM system and demonstrate that the strategy expedites the SOC recovery and concurrently diminishes the conventional unit output.