19 Ground Venison Recipes | What to Make with Your Deer Meat (2024)

FAQs

What do you mix with ground venison? ›

Pure ground venison cooks up great with a little cooking fat like pork lard. However, many people like to add fattier cuts of meat or pure animal fat to their ground venison to enhance the taste and spread their venison out into more meals.

Beef fat works well with ground venison, and makes the flavor closer to ground beef. Pork fat is lower in saturated fat, has less flavor and will allow the venison flavor to shine.

Cook to a minimum of 160 degrees F. When you grind meat, you spread any bacteria present throughout the entire batch.

Sometimes I combine ground venison and ground beef 50-50 to make a better mix for any recipe that calls for ground meat. If you do this, you can buy the cheaper ground beef that is a 75-25 mix of lean to fat, and when you add the leaner ground venison, you still get a pretty lean mix.

The distinct game flavor of either birds or animals will be milder after soaking the meat overnight in the refrigerator in either a salt or vinegar solution.

Pork belly has a tendency to overpower the flavor of lean cuts, while fatback compliments them. You can also use beef suet, but the texture and flavor aren't as good as pork. Another option is tallow from wild game, although deer fat is very saturated and waxy.

Soaking deer meat in milk or a marinade with acidic components like vinegar, wine, or citrus juice helps eliminate the gamey taste. Alternatively, brining the meat in a solution of water, salt, and sugar can also improve its flavor and tenderness.

To help venison burgers stick together, consider adding binding ingredients like breadcrumbs, eggs, or even grated cheese. These ingredients act as binders, keeping the burgers together during cooking. Adjust the quantities based on your preferences and the amount of venison used.

How do you make venison taste like beef? ›

Incorporating fat into venison is key to mimicking beef. This can be achieved by wrapping the venison in bacon or barding it with beef fat before cooking. Alternatively, cooking venison in beef stock or adding a bit of beef fat during the cooking process can also impart a richness closer to that of beef.

The number one mistake people make when preparing venison is that they overcook it, rendering the meat rubbery and gamey. Tender cuts of venison should be served rare or medium rare unless you are braising it or mixing it with pork to add more fat.

Large cuts of venison taste best when pot-roasted for several hours. If you have access to a crock pot, use any recipe for beef pot roast and you'll be pleasantly surprised. However, instead of cooking for two to four hours, venison may require substantially longer cooking time for the meat to become tender.

The toughness is partly the nature of venison, but it is further compounded by how unforgiving the near-zero fat percentage makes it. The most tender cut on the animal for doing a rare or medium rare fast cook method (sear/grill) I've come across is the diaphragm, often discarded upon field dressing.

You don't need to add pork to venison, but it can be a little dry due to being so lean, so cooking it with some bacon adds some fatty flavor to venison. For venison hamburger meat any pork fat will do for getting the lean venison to stick together, and it tastes delicious.

With most ground venison recipes, my magic number is 80 percent lean and 20 percent fat. Adjust the ratio according to your personal taste. For sausage and other cured meats, the fat content can be much higher. Slightly freeze the fat before running it through your grinder or chopping it into small pieces.

Given that deer are leaner than cows, venison is generally healthier to eat than beef. An average cut of venison, in fact, has around half the calories and a sixth the saturated fats of a similarly sized cut of beef. It also has more proteins, vitamins and minerals than beef.

The best seasonings for ground venison include salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, cumin, and dried herbs such as thyme, rosemary, or oregano. These seasonings enhance the natural flavor of the venison without overpowering it.