Ground Venison Dinner Recipes and More!

My Family’s Favorite, Easy Ground Venison Recipes

With a family of hunters, our freezer is often filled with Venison to last a whole year. We have four boys and one girl, including a few athletes who like to pack protein into their diets. I’m not the type of cook who likes to spend hours in the kitchen making a meal. So, my recipes are pretty simple and easy.

My family is happy with these reliable favorites and doesn’t seem to tire of them, month after month. We don’t do anything different with cooking venison than we do with beef. We are very used to the flavor and find our digestive systems prefer it. We can always tell when we’ve had a beef burger, and now they taste a little off to us. Let’s dive into some of our monthly ground venison recipes.

Ground Venison Tacos

If you have a big family, you might struggle with pleasing everyone at the dinner table, like I do. But tacos make everyone happy! We don’t do anything different when making tacos with venison than we do with regular beef. Honestly, I just buy the Old El Paso Taco Seasoning packets and follow the directions on the back.

We are firm believers that boys can learn to cook too. From an early age, our boys are taught how to brown meat over the stove and follow instructions on a packet. With two parents working full-time jobs, they took turns making dinner when everyone lived at home.

We serve tacos with Mission Low-Carb Tortilla Wraps, taco boats, or hard shells. Their favorite condiments are a Mexican blend of shredded cheese, taco sauce, sour cream, and chopped lettuce. But I like to make a taco salad with mine and use spinach and mixed greens.

Two pounds of ground taco meat lasts about 2-3 days in our house. So it’s a great way to stretch the venison in our freezer for multiple meals and easy leftovers in the microwave.

Ground Venison Hamburgers

My husband, Scott, is the grillmaster in our home. He likes that to be his domain, and I’m happy to let him. Another ground venison recipe tradition he has with our kids is preparing hamburger patties. We both have fond memories of them standing on stools and chairs at the kitchen counter, learning to make the patties.

Scott makes about 5 patties out of a pound of meat, so depending on how many are home for dinner, he will use one or two packages of ground venison. His ‘go-to’ seasoning for burgers? Lawry’s Seasoned Salt. That’s it. Then he puts them back in the fridge until the grill is ready. I think his secret is cooking the burgers while they are still cold to keep the fat and meat intact. This helps the burgers have a juicy texture. He grills them on our little Weber Q grill in the garage, and they are delicious.

The kids set the table and put our usual fixings out: buns, 2-3 kinds of cheese like swiss, provolone, or cheddar, ketchup, mustard, and some lettuce. We’re not really a tomato family, I guess. But we love our cheese and always have options.

Simon is our hamburger lover and can easily finish two before the rest of us have finished one. We often have to remind him to chew. Scott’s burgers are pretty tasty.

Crockpot Paleo Venison Chili

When Scott is in the mood for comfort food during cold winters, he usually turns to our ground venison recipe for chili. Several years ago I experimented with chili recipes and modified a few to find one he liked. We often will spend time together in the kitchen on Sundays prepping a big crockpot dish so we have lunches for the week. I also entered the recipe into a fun crockpot contest at my office and won a small prize. If you love “set it and forget” types of recipes, here’s the one we enjoy.

Chili Ingredients

• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 1 lb. ground venison
• 1/4 yellow onion, diced
• 1/2 green pepper, diced
• 1–14.5 oz. can of tomato sauce
• 1–14.5 oz. can of diced tomatoes
• 3 tsp. minced garlic
• 1 Tbsp. chili powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp oregano

Chili Instructions

• Place a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add oil to skillet and swirl to coat.
• ADD venison and saute until browned, breaking the venison into small pieces. When cooked through, drain and add venison to the crockpot.
• ADD peppers and onions to the crockpot. (If preferred, you can also saute the peppers and onions first)
• ADD garlic, spices, tomato sauce, and diced tomatoes to the crockpot.
• COOK on low for 6-8 hours or on high for 3-4 hours.

Easy Ground Venison Sloppy Joe

Ground venison can be a versatile meat that makes great sloppy joe sandwiches. Our family loves this for a simple, quick dinner and it’s great for leftover lunches all week. Fluffy buns and a little cheese to top it off make it an extra melty mashup for cheese lovers. My husband’s secret to great-tasting meat is browning the venison on a seasoned cast iron skillet. His go-to brand is Lodge Cast Iron and he takes pride in the oil and seasoning process to add good flavor to his meals.

We have purchased a couple of different sizes. But the 13.25-inch cast Iron Skillet by Lodge is what we brown 2 lbs. of venison for sloppy Joe nights.

Stovetop Directions (right from a can of Sloppy Joe):
1. In a large skillet brown 2 pounds of ground venison; drain well.
2. Stir in 2 (15 oz) cans of Our Family Sloppy Joe Sauce and heat for 5 minutes on medium-high heat. Serve on a bun. Makes 16 sandwiches.
3. Add your favorite cheese, if desired.

Steaks: Easy Venison Recipe

Depending on how many steaks we have in the freezer, we like to save these for special occasions: a birthday, holiday, a celebration, good grades at school, a promotion at work, or a special guest coming for dinner.

When steaks are on the dinner menu, Scott takes charge in the kitchen as the chef. He seasons the steaks with Montreal Steak Seasoning and allows them to reach room temperature before grilling. Usually, he seasons them the night before and then asks me to take them out of the fridge about one hour before he plans to be home to grill. A room-temperature steak cooks more evenly and locks in the juices.

While some family members like to add A1 Steak Sauce to their steak, most of us are happy with it straight off the grill. Another good tip is to let your steak rest for 5-7 minutes after grilling. This extra patience will keep the heat and moisture inside. Our favorite sides to serve with steak are asparagus, green beans, or broccoli and mashed or baked potatoes. Yum!

Comfort foods: Venison, Potatoes, and Stew

A few times, I have thrown together ground venison recipes with browned meat and some potatoes. The boys will add cheese after they reheat the leftovers.

Venison Stew has been made in our home a couple of times and is enjoyed by several of us. The chunky carrots and potatoes soaked in the beef broth are favorites for many. We research recipes when trying something new. We are going to try this recipe the next time we need some good comfort food and Venison Stew.

Venison Sausage and Jerky

From the processor we have also enjoyed sausage and jerky. Scott is more of the sausage guy and enjoys cooking it with eggs in the morning. Jerky, is something our boys grab for school snacks. But it is a little more expensive to process, so we’ve only included that in our deer processing order a few times. 

Buck Buck Moose

I was on Reddit the other day and read about a highly popular cookbook by Hank Shaw called Buck Buck Moose. It has over 1,500 reviews on Amazon and 5 stars. I think I know what Scott’s next present is going to be! I’ll come back and write another blog if we try any of the recipes.