Mixing Ground Meat With Venison

In this economy, even those of us that once had solid jobs have found ourselves out of work and needing to visit the local food bank to stretch our food dollars. Here in Missouri, frozen ground venison meat is often offered at food banks via a "share the harvest" program. Here are my thrifty tips for great uses of stretching meals using ground venison.

Meatballs: Mix 50-50 with ground beef or pork in your favorite Italian or cocktail meatball recipe. My kids have not only NOT noticed, but asked why my meatballs are so tasty lately!
Meat Loaf: Same as meatballs.
Taco Meat: Again, mix 50-50 with ground beef with your taco meat seasoning for tasty tacos.
Burgers: Mix with ground beef, pork, or turkey for burgers. I always mix a bit of Worcestershire and a couple tablespoons of water into my hamburger patties, along with some seasoned salt and pepper. The water and worcestershire make the juiciest burgers ever!
Sausage: Ambitious sausage makers already know the many uses of deer meat for sausage.

Enjoy venison!

By Matt Bilardo from Grain Valley, MO

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Grandma J
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June 24, 20100 found this helpful

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As most hunters know (from MN) mixing your ground venison with another meat of choice is a staple in the harvesting of deer. One of my son's is a manager of a local grocery, also a meat cutter, so he can quickly filet (butcher) out any hanging deer to the right cuts, scraps, etc with little waste happening.

One thing here, you can get your name on the list for road-killed deer. These are calls that come into the law enforcement immediately following the car/deer issue. For a $5 permit, you take home the fresh kill. Those which don't get takers (middle of the night mostly) they go to area wild life rehabs to use for food. This permit does not hinder your ability to get a license for hunting on your own. You can get as many just road-killed as available when the call goes out.
Deer count was down considerable this last fall for hunters walking the fields. All my guys get their permits for the month of November.

Jen Hummell

June 30, 20100 found this helpful

Top Comment

We only mix our deer with beef or pork when we need to mold it such as burgers or a meatloaf. When making anything else that is is browned and crumbled, we use it like normal ground beef.

If there's a sauce, you can't tell the difference!

Loretta

June 24, 20100 found this helpful

Your ideas are not new to me, as I grew up with venison as a regular food item. It is a shame that so many have to be introduced to it slowly, and yet it has some of the "cleanest", leanest, tastiest, flavor that one can find. Of course we all know that the little fat that there is is not tasty, but that is easy to remove, making venison extremely low in calories compared ounce to ounce with other meats that are "fattened" on grains and such. Good for you to introduce your family to this. Hate that the loss of a job was the cause, but good that you found the food bank, as we work with one here in so. Al.

Kristen

June 24, 20100 found this helpful

For the Australians among us, I'd recommend the same with kangaroo (which is quite rich and gamey). Venison is actually quite expensive here!

Though I have to say, I take advantage of the richness of kangaroo meat by bulking it up with vegetables and grains. ;)

Mary

June 24, 20100 found this helpful

We buy venison from a local processing center. After the season is over, a lot of the meat has not been claimed and they sell it to the public. It's a lot cheaper than what the stores charge to buy it this way. Just call any deer processing center in your area during deer hunting season and they will tell you when they will start selling the meat and how much it will cost per deer.

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